Luther

LUTHER

NIHIL OBSTAT

0. SCHUT, S.T.D.,

Censor Deputatus.

IMPRIMATUK

EDM. CAN. SUKMONT,

Vic. Gen.
Westmonasterii, die 10 Juliiy 1913.

LUTHER

BY

HARTMANN GRISAR, SJ.

PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY

E. M. LAMOND

EDITED BY

LUIGI CAPPADELTA

VOLUME II

LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.

BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.G.
1913

A FEW PRESS OPINIONS OF
VOLUME I

"His most elaborate and systematic biography ... is not
merely a book to be reckoned with ; it is one with which we cannot
dispense, if only for its minute examination of Luther's theological
writings."— The Athenceum.

"There is no room for any sort of question as to the welcome
ready among English-speaking Roman Catholics for this admirably
made translation of the first volume of the German monograph
by Professor Grisar on the protagonist of the Reformation in
Europe. . . . The book is so studiously scientific, so careful to
base its teaching upon documents, and so determined to eschew
controversies that are only theological, that it cannot but deeply
interest Protestant readers."— The Scotsman.

"Father Grisar has gained a high reputation in this country
through the translation of his monumental work on the History of
Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages, and this first instalment
of his life of Luther bears fresh witness to his unwearied industry,
wide learning, and scrupulous anxiety to be impartial in his judg
ments as well as absolutely accurate in matters of fact."— Glasgow
Herald.

" It is impossible to understand the Reformation without under
standing the life and character of the great German. The man
and the work are so indissolubly united that we cannot have right
judgments about either without considering the other. It is one
of Father Grisar's many merits that he does not forget for a single
moment the fundamental importance of this connection. The man
and his work come before us in these illuminating pages, not as
more or less harmonious elements, but as a unity, and we cannot
analyse either without constant reference to the other." — Irish
Times.

" Professor Grisar is hard on Luther. Perhaps no Roman
Catholic can help it. But it is significant that he is hard on the
anti-Lutherans also. ... He shows us, indeed, though not de
liberately, that some reformation of religion was both imperative
and inevitable. . . . But he is far from being overwhelmed with
prejudice. He really investigates, uses good authorities, and
gives reasons for his judgments." — The Expositor// Times.

" This Life of Luther is bound to become standard ... a model
of every literary, critical, and scholarly virtue." — The Month.

"The most important book on Luther that has appeared since
Denifle's epoch-making 'Luther und Luthertum.' ... It is an
ordered biography, . . . and is therefore very probably destined
to a wider general usefulness as a Catholic authority."— The Irish
Rosary,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI. THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT

APOSTASY pages 3-44

1. ALLIES AMONG THE HUMANISTS AND THE NOBILITY TILL

THE MIDDLE OF 1520.

Friends among the Humanists : Crotus Rubeanus,
Eobanus Hessus, etc. The nobility and the revolutionary
knights. Piety of Hutten's language when addressing
Luther. Franz von Sickingen. Offer made by Silvester von
Schauenberg. Report that Hutten had trapped the Papal
Legates ; Capito counsels greater moderation. Luther's
reason for only meeting the knights half-way. Luther's
work, " Von dem Bapstum tzu Rome," 1520 ; its violence
contrasted with Luther's earlier demands of the " man of
good will." The manifesto against Alveld. Prierias the
Dominican attacks Luther's Indulgence-theses ; the latter's
intense annoyance ; summary of his second reply. Treat
ment of Hoogstraaten the Inquisitor. Luther's description
of himself as a " man of contentions." Scolded by Emser
for his lack of self-control. ..... pages 3—15

2. THE VEILING OP THE GREAT APOSTASY.

By holding out hopes of reconciliation, Luther delays
the final decision. His missive to Bishop Scultetus, in
whose diocese lay Wittenberg. Three letters to Pope
Leo X ; why the last was antedated ; its purport. Letter to
the Emperor Charles V ; reason and setting of the letter ;
its contents. Luther's later description of his " inaction "
during this period. His correspondence with Spalatin ; the
real aim of many of the letters : to promote his cause at
Court ; his offer to resign his professorship. The diplo
matist coupled with the enthusiast . . pages 15-26

3. LUTHER'S GREAT REFORMATION-WORKS — RADICALISM AND

RELIGION.

" To the Christian Nobility " ; " On the Babylonish
Captivity " ; " On the Freedom of a Christian Man " ;
specimens from the last of Luther's taking way of addressing
the people ; his rejection of external authority and asser
tion of the right of private judgment against the " tyranny "
of Popes and Bishops. His new conception of faith. The
pietist and religious revolutionary . . . pages 26-37

vi CONTENTS

4. LUTHER'S FOLLOWERS. Two TYPES OF His CULTURED
PARTISANS : WILLIBALD PIRKHEIMER AND ALBERT
DURER.

The deep-set discontent of the Germans leads even the
best-disposed to welcome Luther's strictures. Two famous
Nurembergers : Willibald Pirkheimer's intervention on
Luther's behalf ; his subsequent deception ; withdraws
from the cause. Albert Diirer's prepossession in Luther's
favour ; his art in Luther's service ; did he afterwards
alter his ideas ? ...... pages 38-44

CHAPTER XII. EXCOMMUNICATION AND OUTLAWRY.

SPIRITUAL BAPTISM IN THE WARTBURG pages 45-96

1. THE TRIAL. THE EXCOMMUNICATION (1520) AND ITS CON
SEQUENCES.

The proceedings in Rome postponed and then resumed.
The 41 propositions. The Bull " Exsurge Domine " menaces
all Lutherans with excommunication in the event of their
refusing to submit ; some excerpts from the Bull. Luther's
writings against the Bull ; futility of his appeal to a General
Council ; the burning of the Bull. " Compos mei non sum " ;
his feverish activity ; " Fluctibus his rapior et volvor " ; his
hints at armed opposition ; on " washing hands in blood " ;
moderates his language when addressing the Saxon Court.
Conviction that the Pope is Antichrist strengthened by the
birth of the Freiberg Calf. His " Instruction to penitents
concerning forbidden books" (February, 1521) composed
in view of the Easter confession .... pages 45-G1

2. THE DIET OF WORMS, 1521 ; LUTHER'S ATTITUDE.

The Diet assembled. Luther's journey to Worms. Hap
penings at Erfurt. Arrival at Worms ; his interrogation ;
unofficial attempts to reach a settlement ; his final refusal
to recant. Sympathisers among the members of the Diet ;
pressure brought to bear by the Knights ; the Elector of
Saxony. Luther's departure ; preaches sermons in spite of
the condition laid down in his safe-conduct ; carried off to
the Wartburg ; formally declared an outlaw ; a letter to

. pages 61-69

3. LEGENDS.

The story of the Emperor's breach of the safe-conduct
Luther s asseveration that his opponents refused to argue
because they knew him to be in the right. What Luther
stood for at Worms was no " freedom of conscience " in the
modern sense. The legendary utterance " Here I stand I
cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen." Various tales
unfavourable to Luther: His supposed drunkenness and
excesses at Worms ; despatches of Contarini the Venetian
minister and Aleander the papal nuncio. . pages 69-79

CONTENTS vii

4. LUTHER'S SOJOURN AT THE WARTBURG.

Luther's disposition and occupation in his lonely retreat.
Rising scruples crushed ; gloomy thoughts ; bodily assaults
of the evil one ; temptations. His cogitations on the
question of celibacy ; discovers the best argument to use
against vows and priestly obligations, viz. " evangelical
freedom " ; result committed to print in his work " On
Monastic Vows " ; his own intention to remain unmarried.
His self-accusations of gluttony and laziness not to be taken
literally. His translation, of the New Testament. His work
" On the Abuse of the Mass " ; its frightful caricature of the
Pope of Rome. His spiritual Baptism ; his conviction of
the reality of his Divine mission .... pages 79-94

5, WARTBURG LEGENDS.

Luther's own language responsible for certain unfounded
charges against him. Meaning of the " tilillationes " and
" molestice " of which he complains. The haunted castle ;
incident of the visit of " Hans von Berlips's wife " ; the
ubiquitous ink-smudge ..... pages 94-96

CHAPTER XIII. THE RISE OF THE REFORMED

CHURCHES . pages 97-172

1. AGAINST THE FANATICS. CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES ?

Luther quits the Wartburg and returns to Wittenberg.
Progress of the movement at Wittenberg during his absence.
Carlstadt a cause of misgivings. The Zwickau Prophets
appeal to Holy Writ and their Divine mission ; Luther
preaches against their ways ; haste to be deprecated ; he
bases his superior claim on the priority of his revelation ; he
is backed by the Court. He invites people to smash the
Bishoprics and drive away the " wolves " (1522). As
organiser of a new Church he is faced by practical difficulties
owing to his having no clear notion of what the Church should
be. Apocalyptic dreams. A dilemma : Is the new church-
system to be introduced by the secular authorities or to
spring up spontaneously within the congregations ? The free
brotherhood without law or coercion. The new " Chris
tians"; use of title "Evangelicals." Two points to be
settled first, viz. the celebration of the Supper and the
appointment of pastors. Luther's then leanings to the
democratic congregational ideal. " De instituendis ministris
ecclesice " and his writing to the Church of Leisnig (1523) a
programme of Congregationalism. High hopes and excessive
claims ; his mysticism gives him the assurance that unity
will be achieved ...... pages 97-115

2. AGAINST CELIBACY. DOUBTFUL AUXILIARIES FROM THE

CLERGY AND THE CONVENTS.

Advantages and disadvantages of Luther's warfare
on the state of religious celibacy. His work " On Monastic

BR
315
,G8

viii CONTENTS

Vows." His exhortations to a religious to " pocket his
scruples and be a man." On man's need to marry. Signifi
cant admissions. His teaching in the Postils and Larger
Catechism ; advice to the Prince-abbots and Knights of
the Teutonic Order ; sarcastic remarks concerning the
olden Fathers, particularly Jerome, and their " petty
temptations " ; connection of Luther's attack on vows and
his early dislike of " works." The character of the new
pastors and preachers ; Luther suggests the erection of a
jail for their especial benefit ; Eberlin, Hessus, and Cordus,
Erasmus and Ickelsamer on the reformed pastors' failings.
Eberlin's testimony in favour of the Franciscans . pages 115-129

3. REACTION OF THE APOSTASY ON ITS AUTHOR. His PRIVATE
LIFE (1522-1525).

The " scandal " of his life as it appeared to the Fanatics ;
displeasure of a Catholic contemporary ; reports carried to
the Court of King Ferdinand ; moral circumspection im
posed on Luther by his situation : "we are a spectacle unto
the whole world." Flight of Catherine von Bora and the
Nimbschen nuns ; the "delivery" of other convent-inmates
elsewhere ; Luther's intercourse at Wittenberg with the
escaped nuns ; his allusions to them. His joke about his
" three wives " ; urges the Archbishop of Mayence to wed,
the lattor's retort and Luther's offer " to prance along in
front " as an example to His Grace. Some characteristic
extracts from his letters to intimates. Melanchthon shocked
at Luther's behaviour and jests. Dungersheim on Luther's
doings in the " herd of runaway nuns." Eck on Luther's
character and conduct. Luther's sermons on self-control
devil's chastity, etc. " On Conjugal life." Luther's dis
regard for decency unmatched by any writer of his age. His
description of King Henry VIII. Rebuked by contemporaries
for his incessant recourse to invective . . . pages 129-157

4. FURTHER TRAITS TOWARDS A PICTURE OF LUTHER. OUT
WARD APPEARANCE. SUFFERINGS, BODILY AND MENTAL.

General descriptions of Luther's personal appearance
His reputed portraits not good likenesses. Effect of anxiety
and overwork on his nervous system. Discussion of the
question whether Luther suffered from the venereal disease
so common in his time ; the newly discovered letter of the
physician Rychardus in 1523 regarding Luther's indis
position Luther's fits of depression; he relieves his
ieclmgs by greater violence in his attacks on the Church of
Home, religious vows, the Popish Mass, and the foe within the
camp ; Satan raging everywhere ; the end of all not far off
He invites Amsdorf to come and comfort him, beino- " verv
sad and tempted " ; falls into a fainting-fit when alone at
home; recovers his composure under the cheering influ
ence of music ; requests Senfl of Munich to set to music a
favourite anthem . . ^157-172

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XIV. FROM THE PEASANT-WAR TO THE

DIET OF AUGSBURG (1525-1530) . . . 173-399

1. LUTHER'S MARRIAGE.

Luther's unexpected wedding with Catherine von Bora ;
his justification of it ; Melanchthon's mixed feelings shown
in his confidential letter to Camerarius ; his surprise that
Luther should have chosen this " unhappy time " (the
period of the Peasant-War) for his marriage. Luther's
excitement during the War and his presentiment of approach
ing death ; his determination to spite the devil and himself ;
his marriage a " work of God." The death of Frederick the
Wise removes an obstacle to Luther's matrimony. Luther's
jesting references to the step. His friends' misgivings.
Erasmus sadly disappointed in his hope that marriage would
tame Luther. Dungersheim's lament. Marriage -legends :
The statement that the marriage was consummated before
being solemnised, due to a mere misunderstanding ; report
of Bora's early confinement based on a statement of Erasmus
which he afterwards withdrew. Statements of Heyden and
Lemnius regarding Luther's misconduct with Bora, too
general to be of historical value . . . pages 173-189

2. THE PEASANT- WAR. POLEMICS.

Connection of the Peasant-rising with the new preaching.
The " Twelve Articles " of the Swabians ; " Evangelical "
demands of the Peasants ; the Peasants incited by fanatical
preachers ; efforts made by the better pastors to quiet the
populace. Luther drawn into the movement ; his " Ex
hortation to peace " ; its description of the lords calculated
to fan the flame ; his broadside " Against the murderous
Peasants " and its drift : " Hew them down, slaughter, and
stab them like mad dogs." The pamphlet alienates the lower
classes. Luther's writing on the defeat of Miinzer. His
" Circular letter on the severe booklet against the Peasants."
Contemporary opinions regarding Luther's action ; Zasius,
CochlEeus, Erasmus. Luther's later references to his inter
vention in the revolt ; he ceases to be any longer the idol of
the people. The Catholic Princes take steps to maintain
their authority against the encroachments of the innovators.
The Dessau League and the Assembly of Mayence. Luther's
suppressed tract " Against the Mayence proposal," 1526.
The Lutherans enter into an alliance at Torgau ; Luther on
the aversion of both lords and peasants for himself. His
abiding distrust of the peasants. The " awful ingratitude "
of the people. His excitement and his polemics only deepen
his conviction of his Divine mission. Emser's indignation
with Luther expressed in verse. The multiplicity of the
matters of business referred to Luther . . pages 189-223

3. THE RELIGION or THE ENSLAVED WILL. THE CONTROVERSY

BETWEEN LUTHER AND ERASMUS (1524-1525).

The earlier Church on freedom of the will. Growth of
Luther's denial of freedom from the time of the Com-

x CONTENTS

mentary on Romans; his attack on free-will in the "Resolu
tions " after the Leipzig Disputation and in the "Assertio "
against the Bull of Excommunication (1521) : " Omnia de
necessitate absoluta eveniunt," anything else mere Pelagianism ;
St. Augustine ; the " religion of the Cross " ; Scripture the
sole rule of faith ; Luther's deviations from his stern
doctrine in his practical works ; objections within his own
fold. Erasmus invited to take the field on behalf of freedom ;
previous attitude of the leader of the Humanists : partly for,
partly against Luther ; his eyes opened in 1520 ; his regret
in 1521 for having fanned the flames by his writings ; the
saying : " Erasmus laid the egg which Luther hatched " ;
various opinions regarding Erasmus. Luther seeks in vain
to dissuade Erasmus from writing against him ; publication
of the " De libero arbitrio diatribe," 1524 ; Luther's reply :
" De servo arbitrio " ; contents and character of the work ;
religious determinism ; God the only real agent ; peace
to be secured only at the price of surrendering free-will ;
unfreedom and predestination to hell ; God's Secret Will
versus His Revealed Will ; existence of commandments
and penalties ; how explained ? Man's will a saddle-horse
mounted alternately by God and the devil. Luther's
psychology as portrayed in his work on the enslaved will.
Laurentius Valla. Luther's later dicta on the enslaved will
and predestination ; his own opinion unaltered to the end ;
he commends, however, the second edition of the " Loci
Theologici " in which Melanchthon sacrifices determinism.
Letter to Count A. von Mansfeld on the scandal of the weak ;
consolation for the damned. Recent views on Luther's atti-
tude • . pages 223-294

4. NEW VIEWS ON THE SECULAR AUTHORITIES.

Luther's own estimation of the value of las teaching on
the subject. How his views were reached. His book " Von
welltlicher ^ Uberkeytt," 1523 ; his depreciation of the
Princes : " A good Prince a rare bird from the beginning."
Antagonism to the fanatics and revolted peasants and his
desire to serve the cause of the Evangel lead him to exag
gerate the secular authority at the expense of the spiritual ;
Luther's self-contradictory utterances on the subject of the
use of earthly weapons in the service of the Evangel pages 294-3 1 2

5. How THE NEW CHURCH-SYSTEM WAS INTRODUCED.

Dollinger on the preparation of the ground for the Re
formation. The proceedings at Altenburg, Lichtenberg,
Schwarzburg, and Eilenburg typical of the action of the
town councils. Partial retention of olden ceremonial for the
sake of avoiding scandal. An instance of misplaced en
thusiasm : Hartmuth von Cronberg. Proceedings at
Wittenberg, in the Saxon Electorate and in the free Imperial
city of Nuremberg. Lutheranism introduced at the Uni
versity town of Erfurt ; Luther's own part in this ; the
Catholic opposition headed by Usingen ; anti-clerical
rising in the town ; invasion of the peasants and overthrow

CONTENTS xi

of the magistracy ; awkward position of Luther on being
appealed to by the committees set up by the revolutionaries ;
negotiations with the Saxon Elector and the Archbishop of
Mayence ; partial success of the Archbishop's threats pages 312-362

6. SHARP ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FANATICS.

Advantages accruing to Luther from his warfare with the
Anabaptists. Thomas Munzer's opinions and doings.
Luther's Circular on. the spirit of revolt and Munzer's
" Schutzrede " ; with \vhom is the decision as to the
quality of the spirit to rest ? Munzer's capture and execu
tion ; Luther exults. Luther's tracts against Carlstadt ;
all his gainsayers possessed by the devil ; Munzer's de
scription of Luther as the Pope of Wittenberg. Ickelsamer's
objection that Luther goes only half-way with his principle
of private judgment. Luther's view that every man sent
by God must be " tried by the devil." Luther shocks his
wife ... . pages 363-379

7. PROGRESS or THE APOSTASY. DIETS or SPIRES (1529) AND

AUGSBURG (1530).

Previous Diets ; the Diet of Spires in 1526 ; the Protest
at the Diet of Spires in 1529 ; that of Augsburg in 1530 ;
Melanchthon's diplomacy approved by Luther; "insidice"
pitted against " insidice " ; the Gospel-proviso ; Luther's
admission to Philip of Hesse ; failure of the Augsburg
Diet ; the tale of the spectre-monks of Spires ; Luther's
obsessions in the fortress of Coburg ; vehemence of his tract
against the " pretended Imperial edict " ; his reply to
Duke George the " Dresden assassin." Luther's fidelity to
certain central truths of Christianity, particularly to the
doctrine of the Trinity pages 380-399

VOL. II.
THE APOSTASY

II. — B

LUTHEB

CHAPTER XI

THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GREAT APOSTASY

1. Allies among the Humanists and the Nobility till the
middle of 1520

As his work progressed the instigator of the innovations
received offers of support from various quarters where aims
similar to his were cherished.

In the first place there were many among the Humanists
who greeted him with joy because they trusted that their
ideals, as expressed in the " Epistolce obscurorum virorum"
would really be furthered by means of Luther's boldness
and energy. They took his side because they looked upon
him as a champion of intellectual liberty and thus as a
promoter of noble, humane culture against the prevalent
barbarism.

Erasmus, Mutian, Crotus Rubeanus, Eobanus Hcssus and
others were numbered amongst his patrons, though, as in the
case of the first three, some of them forsook him at a later
date. Most of the Humanists who sought, in verse and
prose, to arouse enthusiasm for Luther in Germany were
as yet unaware that the spirit of the man whom they were
thus extolling differed considerably from their own, and
that Luther would later become one of the sternest oppo
nents of their views concerning the rights of reason and
" humanity " as against faith. Meanwhile, however, Luther
not only did not scorn the proffered alliance, but, as his
letters to Erasmus show, condescended to crave favour in
language so humble and flattering that it goes far beyond
the customary protestations usual among the Humanists.
He also drew some very promising Humanists into close

4 THE APOSTASY

relation with himself, for instance. Philip Melanchthon and
Justus Jonas, whom he won over to his cause at an early
date. Crotus Rubeanus, the principal author of the
" Epistolce obscurorum virorum" sought to renew his old
acquaintance with his friend by letter in October, 1519.
To him Luther appeared as the man of whose courage in
opposing tyrants all the world was talking, and who was
filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Crotus, at the instiga
tion of Hutten, was anxious to bring about an under
standing between Luther and the Knight Franz von
Sickingen.1

The nobility was another important factor on whose
support Luther was later to rely.

Ulrich von Hutten, the Franconian Knight and Humanist,
a typical representative of the revolutionary knights of the
day, speaks to the Monk of Wittenberg in the same devout
terms as Crotus. The language, well padded with quotations
from the Gospel, which he adopts to please Luther and the
Reformers, makes a very strange impression coming from
him, the libertine and cynic. His first dealings with Luther
were in January, 1520, when, through the agency of Melanch
thon, he promised him armed protection should he stand in
need of such. The message was to the effect, that Franz
von Sickingen, the knight, would, in any emergency,2 offer
him a secure refuge in his castle of Ebernburg. As a matter
of fact Sickingen, in 1520, made over this castle — called the
" Hostel of Justice " — to Hutten, Bucer and (Ecolampadius
as a place of safety. Representatives of the nobility who
had fallen foul of the Empire there made common cause
with the theologians of the new teaching.

As yet, however, Luther felt himself sufficiently secure
under his own sovereign at Wittenberg. He maintained an
attitude of reserve towards a party which might have
compromised him, and delayed giving his answer. The
revolutionary spirit which inspired the nobility throughout
the Empire, so far as we can judge from the sources at our
disposal, was not approved of by Luther save in so far as the
efforts of these unscrupulous men of the sword were directed
against the power of Rome in Germany, and against the
payments to the Holy See. His own appeals to the national

1 " Hutteni opp.," ed. Booking (Lipsise, 1859, seq.), 1, p. 433.

2 Ibid., 1, p. 320 seq.

RELATIONS WITH THE KNIGHTS 5

feeling of the Germans against the " Italian Oppression,"
as he styled it, were in striking agreement with the warlike
proclamations of the Knights against the enslaving and
exploitation of Germany.

Thus sympathy, as well as a certain community of
interests, made the Knights heralds of the new Evangel.

In February, 1520, Hutten, through the intermediary of
Melanchthon, again called the attention of Luther, " God's
Champion," to the refuge offered him by Sickingcn.1 Luther
did not reply until May, nor has the letter been preserved ;
neither do wrc possess the three following letters which he
wrote to Hutten. Cochlacus, his opponent, says, he had seen
" truly bloody letters " written by Luther to Hutten.2 He
does not, however, give any further particulars of their
contents ; how the words " bloody letters " — probably an
unduly strong expression — arc to be understood may be
gathered from some statements of Luther's regarding
another offer made him about the same time.

The Knight Silvester von Schauenberg, a determined
warrior, at that time High Bailiff of Miinnerstadt, declared
he was ready to furnish one hundred nobles who would pro
tect him by force of arms until the termination of his
"affair."3 Luther made Schauenberg's letter known
amongst his friends and adherents. He informs Spalatin,
that " Schauenberg and Franz von Sickingen have insured
me against the fear of men. The wrath of the demons is
now about to come ; this will happen when I become a
burden to myself."4 "A hundred nobles," he repeats in
another letter, " have been promised me by Schauenberg
in the event of my fleeing to them from the menaces of the
Romans. Franz Sickingen has made the same offer."5

He had already, several months before this, spoken
openly in his sermon " On Good Works " (March, 1520) of
the intervention of the worldly powers wrhich he would Jike

1 "Hutteni opp.," cd. Booking (Lipsiae, 1859, seq.), 1, p. 320 seq.

2 " Vidimus certe cruentas eius litteras ad Huttenum." C. Otto, " Joh.
Cochlaus," 1874, p. 121, note. Janssen-Pastor, "Gesch. des deutschen
Volkes," 218, p. 116.

3 Schauenberg's letter of June 11, 1520, in Luther's " Briefwechsel,"
ed. Enders 2, p. 415.

4 On June 17, 1520, " Brief weehsel," 2, p. 443.

5 To Wenceslaus Link, July 20, 1520, Letters, ed. de Wette, 1,
p. 470 (" Briefwechsel," 2, p. 444).

6 THE APOSTASY

to see, because the spiritual powers do nothing but lead
everything to ruin.1

Hutten, who was more favourably disposed to\vards an
alliance than Luther, continued to make protestations of
agreement with Luther's views and to hold out invitations
to him. On June 4 he wrote to him among other things :
" I have always agreed with you [in your writings] so far
as I have understood them. You can reckon on me in any
case." " Therefore, in future, you may venture to confide
all your plans to me."2 In another letter Hutten gave him
to understand that, on account of the action of the Papal
party, he would now attack the tyrant of Rome by force of
arms,3 at the same time informing also the Archbishop of
Mayencc, and Capito, of his resolution.4 Luther was so
carried away by this prospect that he wrote to Spalatin
that if the Archbishop of Mayencc were to proceed against
him (Luther) in the same way as he had done against
Hutten, viz. by prohibiting his writings, then he would
" unite his spirit [meaning his pen] with Hutten's," and
the Archbishop would have little cause to rejoice ; the
latter, however, " by his behaviour would probably put a
speedy end to his tyranny."5

In the autumn of 1520 it was said that, near Mayencc,
Hutten had fallen upon the Papal Nuncios Marinus Carac-
cioli and Hieronymus Aleander, who were on their way to
the Diet at AVorms ; Luther believed the report, which was
as a matter of fact incorrect, that Hutten had attacked the
Nuncios and that it was only by chance that the plot mis
carried. " I am glad," he wrote at that time, " that Hutten

! " Werke," Erl. ed., 20, p. 207 ; Weim. ed., 0, p. 258. The " in
signia turbula," which Luther announces in a letter to Spalatin of
February, 1520 (" Brief wechsel," 2, p. 344), is not the "revolution
of the nobility which Hutten planned," but the ecclesiastical and
political storm to be roused by Luther's own action.

2 Text in Luther's " Briefwechsel," 2, p. 409 (better than in Beck
ing, 1, p. 355). At the head of the letter are the words, " Vive libertas."
The phrase, " lubet ad se venire N. te, si tutus istic satis non sis," must
refer to Sickingen. Before this, Hutten says : "Si vi ingruent, vires
erunt adversum, non tan turn pares, sed, ut spero, superiores etiam."

" Se iam et litteris et armis in tyrannidem sacerdotalem mere."
Luther writes thus to Spalatin on September 11, 1520, " Briefwechsel,"
2, p. 478. Cp. ibid., p. 488 : " Armis et ingenio rem tentans."

Cp. Enders, 2, p. 480, note 5.

" lungam Hutteno ct spiritum meum," etc. Letter of Septem
ber 11, 1520, quoted above.

RELATIONS WITH THE KNIGHTS 7

has led the way. Would that he had caught Marinus and
Meander! "x

Luther's threats to use brute force soon became a cause
of annoyance, even to certain of his admirers. We see this
from a friendly warning which Wolfgang Capito addressed
to him in the same year, namely, 1520. After recommend
ing a peaceable course of action he says to him : " You
affright your devoted followers by hinting at mercenaries
and arms. I think I understand the reason of your plan,
but I myself look upon it in a different light." Capito
advises Luther to proceed in a conciliatory manner and with
deliberation. " Do not preach the Word of Christ in con
tention, but in charity."2

He had thus been forewarned when he received from
Hutten, that turbulent combatant, a confidential account
of his work and a request to use his influence with the
Elector in order that the latter might be induced to lend
his assistance to him and his party ; the Prince was " either
to give help to those who had already taken up arms or at
least, in the interests of the good cause, to shut his eyes to
what was going on, and allow them to take refuge in his
domains should the condition of things call for it."3 Hutten,
with his proposed alliance, became more and more im
portunate. To such lengths Luther was, however, not
inclined to go ; he prized too highly the favour in which he
stood with his sovereign to be willing to admit that he was
in favour of civil war or a supporter of questionable elements.
In his reply he thought it necessary to declare himself
averse to the use of arms, notwithstanding the fact that he
hailed with joy Hutten's literary attacks which, according
to his own expression, " would help to overthrow the Papacy

1 To Spalatin, November 13, 1520, " Briefwechsel," 2, p. 523. ^The
" attack " was supposed to have taken place in the beginning of
November. But Aleander, in the letters he sent to Rome in the
middle of December, does not speak of an actual attack, but merely
of threats addressed by Hutten to the Archbishop of Treves, and
reported by the latter to Aleander. Cp. A. Wrede, "Deutsche
Reichstagsakten unter Karl V," Bd. 2, Gotha, 1896, p. 460 f., and
P. Kalkoff, " Die Depeschen des Nuntius Aleander vom Wormser
Reichstag,"2 Halle, 1897, pp. 32, 46.

2 Letter of December 4, 1520, in " Briefwechsel Luthers, 3, p. o f.
The able politician Capito served Luther well also at a later date. It
was chiefly owing to him that the carrying out of the Worms pro
scription was prevented.

3 Letter of December 9, 1520, Booking, 1, p. 435 if.

8 THE APOSTASY

more speedily than could have been anticipated."1 We
learn from his own lips that he wrote to Hutten, saying,
" he did not wish to carry on the struggle for the Gospel by
means of violence and murder." Writing of this to his
friend Spalatin, at Worms, he adds a reflection, intended for
the benefit of the court : " The world has been conquered,
and the Church preserved by the Word, and through the
Word it will be renewed. Antichrist who rose to power
without human assistance will also be destroyed without
human means, namely, by the Word."8

On the other hand, in a letter to Staupitz, who was already
at that time staying at Salzburg, he again makes much of the
importance of Ilutten's and his friends' literary work for
the advance of the new teaching. " Hutten and many
others are writing bravely for me. . . . Our Prince," he
adds, "is acting wisely, faithfully and steadfastly," and as
a proof of the favour of the Kuler of the land he mentions
that he is bringing out a certain publication in Latin and
German at his request.3

"The Prince is acting faithfully and steadfastly," such
was probably the principal reason why Luther refrained
from joining the forward movement as~ advocated by the
Knights of the Empire. The clever Elector was opposed to
any violent method of procedure and was unwilling to have
his fidelity to the Empire unnecessarily called in question.
1 o Luther, moreover, his favour was indispensable, as it was
the utmost importance to him, in the interests of his
inns, to be able to continue his professional work at Witten
berg and to spread abroad his publications unhindered from
so favourable a spot. He was also not of such an adventur
ous disposition as to anticipate great things from the
chimerical enterprise proposed by Ilutten's Knights. He
was however, aware that the religious revolution he was
rthcrmg lent the strongest moral assistance to the liberal
tendencies of the Knights, and he on his part was very well

on the "Assertii," " Opp Lat v ?•' „ «!>e™.tl>™, engaged
«>., 7, p. 91 ft Cp. " W^' Er .Id., 24=P p 55 " "**•

RELATIONS WITH THE KNIGHTS 9

satisfied with the moral help afforded by their party. His
coquetting with this party was, nevertheless, a dangerous
game for Germany. As is well known, Sickingen appealed
in exoneration of his deeds of violence, and Hutten in
defence of his vituperation, to the new gospel which had
recently sprung up in the German land.

Efforts have frequently been made to represent Luther as
treating the efforts of the party opposed to the Empire with
sublime contempt. But it is certain " he was as little
indifferent to the enthusiastic applause of the Franconian
Knight [Hutten] as to the offers of protection and defence
made him by Franz von Sickingen and Silvester von
Schauenberg, the favourable criticism of Erasmus and
other Humanists, the encouraging letters of the Bohemian
Utraquists, the growing sympathy of German clerics and
monks, the commotion among the young students, and the
news of the growing excitement amongst the masses. He
recognised more and more clearly from all these signs that
he was not standing alone."1

His language becomes, in consequence, stronger, his
action bolder and more impetuous. He casts aside all
scruples of ecclesiastical reverence for the primacy of Peter
which still clung to him from Catholic times and he seeks to
arrogate to himself the role of spokesman of the German
nation, more particularly of the universal discontent with
the exactions of Rome. Both are vividly expressed in his
book "Von dcm Bapstum tzu Rome" which he wrote in
May, 1520, and which left the press already in June.

Ho addressed his book "Von dem Bapstum tzu Rome " to a
very large circle, viz. to all who hitherto had found peace of
conscience and a joyous assurance of salvation in fidelity to the
Church and the Papacy. He sought to prove to them that they
had been mistaken, that the Church is merely a purely spiritual
kingdom ; that the riches of this kingdom are to be obtained
simply by faith without the intervention of priestly authority
or the hierarchy ; that God's Kingdom is not bound up with
communion with Rome ; that it exists wherever faith exercises
its sway ; that such a spiritual commonwealth could have no
man as its head, but only Christ. Ecclesiastical authority is to
him no longer what he had at first represented it, an authority
to rule entrusted to the clerical state, but a gracious promise of
Divine forgiveness and mercy to consciences seeking salvation.

1 Bohmer, " Luther im Lichte der neueren Forschung,"2 p. 64.

10 THE APOSTASY

His new dogmatic or psychological standpoint, with its tendency
to tranquillise the soul, is noticeable throughout.

In the same work he deals angrily with the prevailing financial
complaints of the Germans against Rome. He tells the people,
in the inflammatory language of Hutten and Sickingen, that in
Rome the Germans are looked upon as beasts, that the object
there is to cheat the " drunken Germans " of their money by
every possible thievish trick from motives of avarice. " Unless
the German princes and nobles see to it presently, Germany will
end in becoming a desert, or be forced to devour itself."1 A
prediction which was sadly verified in a different sense, indeed,
from that which Luther meant, though largely owing to his
action. The German princes and nobles did indeed do their
share in reducing Germany to a state of desolation, and the
misery of the Thirty Years' War stamped its bloody seal on
Luther's involuntary prophecy.

In the same year, 1520, Luther hurled his so-called
"great reforming writings," "An den Adel " and " De
captivitate bdbylonica" into the thiek of the controversy.
They mark the crisis in the struggle before the publica
tion of the Bull of Excommunication.

Before treating of them, however, we must linger a little
on what has already been considered ; in accordance with
the special psychological task of this work, it is our duty to
describe more fully one characteristic of Luther's action up
to this time, viz. the stormy, violent, impetuous tendency
of his mind. This, as every unprejudiced person will agree,
is in striking contrast to the spiritual character of any
undertaking which is to bring forth lasting ethical results
and true blessing, namely, to that self-control and circum
spection with which all those men commissioned by God
for the salvation of mankind and of souls have ever been
endowed, notwithstanding their strenuous energy.

The necessity of these latter qualities, in the case of one who is
to achieve any permanent good, has never been better set forth
than by Luther himself : " It is not possible," he says in his
exposition of the Lord's Prayer, " that any man of good will, if
really good, can become angry or quarrelsome when he meets
with opposition. Mark it well, it is assuredly a sign of an evil
will if he cannot endure contradiction."2 "But deep-seated
pride cannot bear to be thought in the wrong, or foolish, and
therefore looks upon all others as fools and wicked."3 He
declares that these passionate and self-seeking men are the

" Werke," Weim. cd., 6, p. 277 ff. ; Erl. ed., 27, p 85 tf.
" Wcrke," Weim. ed., 2, p. 103 ; Erl. ed., 21, p. 191.
3 Ibid., pp. 91 and 173.

AGAINST ALVELD 11

" worst and most shameful in the whole of Christendom," for
getting that he himself was classed by his contemporaries and
pupils among these very men.1 If he really was desirous of
hearing the voice of Christ speaking within him, as he actually
believed he did hear it, then he ought not to have allowed that
voice to be drowned by his passionate excitement. Men chosen
by God had always been careful to await the Divine inspirations
with the greatest composure of mind, because they knew well how
easy it is for a troubled mind to be deaf to them, or to mistake
for them the deceptive voice of its own perverse will.

The writing already mentioned, " Von dem Bapstum tzu
Rome," contains the saddest examples of Luther's unbridled
excitement, and of the irritation which burst into a flame at the
least opposition to his opinions.

It is directed against the worthy theologian of Leipzig, Augus
tine Alveld, a Franciscan, who had ventured to take the part of
the Apostolic See, and to gauge Luther's unfair attacks at their
true value. Luther falls upon this learned friar with absolutely
ungovernable fury, calls his book the " work of an ape, intended
to poison the minds of the poor laymen," and him himself " an
uncouth miller's beast who has not yet learnt to bray." " He
ought to have too much respect for the fine, famous town of Leipzig
[whence Alvelcl wrote] to defile it with his drivel and spittle."2

Alveld, however, may have consoled himself with the fact,
that Rome and the Papacy were the object of Luther's wildest
rage : " The Roman scoundrels come along and set the Pope
above Christ." But he is " Antichrist of whom the whole of
Scripture speaks . . . and I should be glad if the King, the
Princes and all the Nobles gave short shrift to the Roman buffoons,
even if we had to do without episcopal pallia. How has Roman
avarice proceeded so far as to seize on the foundations made by
our fathers, on our bishoprics and livings ? Who ever heard or
read of such robbery ? Have we not people who stand in need of
such that we should enrich the muleteers, stable-boys, yea, even
the prostitutes and knaves of Rome out of our poverty, people
who look upon us as the merest fools, and who mock at us in the
most shameful fashion."3

Such unrestrained violence, which tells of a bad cause, is not
merely the result of Luther's embittered state of feeling arising
from the struggle with his opponents ; we notice it in him almost
from the outset of his public career, and it is evident both in his
utterances and in his writings.

The ninety-five Theses, of which the wording was surely
strong enough, were followed by his first popular writing, the
" Sermon on Indulgences and Grace," which ends with a furious
outburst against his adversaries ; whatever they might advance
was nothing but " idle tattle " ; he will not " pay much heed
to it " ; " they are merely dullards who have never so much as

1 See, for instance, Oldecop's statements, vol. 1, pp. 24, 280.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 323 ; Erl. ed., 27, p. 138.

3 Ibid., pp. 322, 136.

12 THE APOSTASY

sniffed the Bible," but are infatuated with their " threadbare
opinions."1 The exclamation of Duke George of Saxony at the
Disputation at Leipzig : " Das wallt die Sucht," might be taken
as the watchword for the whole of the disputatious and passionate
course Luther pursued, from the nailing up of the Theses to the
advent of the Bull of Excommunication. It is not deliberate
and calm logic which leads him on from step to step, rather he
advances by leaps and bounds, and allows himself to be carried
away in his excitement against his opponents to still stronger
outbursts against the Church, sometimes, it is true, merely for
the pleasure of trouncing his enemies and winning the applause
of readers as quarrelsome as himself. Only a few months after
the publication of the Theses, he wrote in this sense to a friend :
" The greater the opposition, the further I advance ; the former
propositions I leave to be barked over, and set up others in order
that they may fall upon them also."2

At the same time, however, he declares that his only crime is
that, " he teaches men to place their hopes in Christ alone, not
in prayers, merits and works."3

The Dominican, Silvester Prierias, in his Dialogue directed
against Luther, had touched upon the Indulgence Theses, though
only cursorily ; Luther was, however, intensely annoyed by the
circumstance of his having replied from Rome, and in his character
of Master of the Sacred Palace, for that Luther's true character
should be unmasked at Rome could prove extremely dangerous
to him ; he was also vexed because Prierias upheld the authority
of the Pope, both as regards indulgences and Church matters in
general. Luther says, it is true, that as regards his own person
he is ready to suffer anything, but that he will not allow any man
to lay hands on his theological standpoint, his exposition of Scrip
ture and (as he insists later) on his preaching of the Word and
Gospel ; "in this matter let no man expect from me indulgence
or patience."4

He certainly proved the truth of the latter promise by his
hrst coarse writing against Prierias, who thereupon entered the
lists with a rejoinder certainly not characterised by gentleness
i his answer to this, Luther's anger knew no bounds. It would
t ^°S™ "lstructlve and interesting to compare the two replies
the Wittenberg professor in respect of the advance in his
controversial theological position exhibited in the second reply
when placed side by side with the first. We must, however,
the sake of brevity, content ourselves with selecting some
aractenstic passages from Luther's second reply, which ap-

Alveld

" Werke," Wcim. ed., 1, p 246

Preache'r at Zwick™> March 24, 1518,

Staupitz, March 31, 1518, ibid., p 176
^11" ^ R°mG'" " Werke>" Erl.'ed., 27, p. 138 ;
" Werke,'' Weim. ed. 6, p. 328 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 2, 80.

AGAINST PRIERIAS 13

" This wretched man wants to avenge himself on me as though
I had replied to his feeble jests in a ridiculous manner ; he puts
forth a writing filled from top to bottom with horrible blasphemies,
so that I can only think this work has been forged by the devil
himself in the depths of hell. If this is believed and taught
openly in Rome with the knowledge of the Pope and the Car
dinals, which I hope is not the case, then I say and declare
publicly that the real Antichrist is seated in the Temple of God
and reigns at Rome, the true Babylon ' clothed in purple ' (Apoc.
xvii. 4), and that the Roman Court is the ' Synagogue of Satan '
(Ibid., ii. 9)." He unjustly imputes to Prierias the belief that
the Bible only receives its inward value from a mortal man (the
Pope). " Oh, Satan," he cries, " Oh, Satan, how long do you
abuse the great patience of your creator ? ... If this [what is
contained in Prierias's book] is the faith of the Roman Church,
then happy Greece, happy Bohemia [which are separated from
Rome], happy all those who have torn themselves away from
her, and have gone forth from this Babylon ; cursed all those
who are in communion with her ! "

He goes so far as to utter those burning words : " Go, then,
thou unhappy, damnable and blasphemous Rome, God's wrath
has at last come upon thee ... let her be that she may become
a dwelling-place of dragons, an habitation of every impure spirit
(Isaias xxxiv. 13), filled to the brim with miserly idols, perjurers,
apostates, sodomites, priapists, murderers, simoniacs and other
countless monsters, a new house of impiety like to the heathen
Pantheon of olden days." He inveighs against the teaching of
Rome with regard to the primacy ; "if thieves are punished by
the rope, murderers by the sword, and heretics by fire, why not
proceed against these noxious teachers of destruction with
every kind of weapon ? Happy the Christians everywhere save
those under the rule of such a Roman Antichrist."1 Prierias
himself is described by Luther as a " shameless mouthpiece of
Satan," and as " a scribe held captive in Thomistic darkness, and
lying Papal Decretals."

In a similar fashion Luther, in his controversial writings,
heaps opprobrious epithets upon his other opponents, Tetzel,
Eck and Emser.

It is true that in their censures on Luther his opponents
were not backward in the use of strong language, thus following
the custom of the day, but for fierceness the Wittenberg pro
fessor was not to be surpassed.

Luther was not appealing to the nobler impulses of the multi
tude who favoured him when, in 1518, he sought to incite his
readers against another of his literary opponents, the Dominican

1 Ibid., p. 347 ^p. 107. We shall come back later to the harsh
exclamation which occurs in the course of this outburst : " Cur non
magis hos magistros perditionis . . . omnibus armis impetimus ct manus
nofttras in sanguine istorum lavamus ? " and to the mitigating addi
tions introduced into the Jena edition of Luther's works, see below,
p. 55, n. 1.

14 THE APOSTASY

Inquisitor, Jakob van Hoogstraaten, and his fellow-monks, with
the violent assertion that Hoogstraaten was nothing but a " mad,
bloodthirsty murderer, who was never sated with the blood of
the Christian Brethren " ; "he ought to be set to hunt for dung-
beetles on a manure heap, rather than to pursue pious Christians,
until ho had learned what sin, error and heresy was, and all else
that pertained to the office of an Inquisitor. For I have never
seen a bigger ass than you . . . you blind blockhead, you blood
hound, you bitter, furious, raving enemy of truth, than whom no
more pestilential heretic has arisen for the last four hundred
years."1 Is it correct to characterise such outbursts in the way
Protestants have done when they mildly remark, that Luther
fought with " boldness and without any fear of men," and that,
though his onslaught was " fierce and violent," yet he was ever
fearful " lest he should do anything contrary to the Will of God "?2
Luther, on the other hand, as early as 1518, made the ad
mission : "I am altogether a man of strife, I am, according to
the words of the Prophet Jeremias, ' A man of contentions.' "3

Hieronymus Emser, who had met Luther at the Leipzig
Disputation and before, might well reproach him with his
passionate behaviour, so utterly lacking in calmness and
self-control, and liken him to " the troubled sea which is
never at rest day or night nor allows others to be at peace ;
yet the Spirit of the Lord only abides in those who are
humble, in the peaceable and composed."4 In another
work he laments in a similar way that, " in the schools and
likewise in his writings and in the pulpit Luther neither
displays devotion nor behaves like a clergyman, but is all
defiance and boastfulness."5

It was in vain that anxious friends, troubled about the
progress of their common enterprise, besought him to
moderate his language. It is true he had admitted to his
fellow-monks, even as early as the time of the nailing up of
his theses, his own " frivolous precipitancy and rashness "
(" levitas et pr (Keeps temeritas ").6 He did not even find it
too hard a task to confess to the courtier Spalatin, that he
had been " unnecessarily violent " in his writings.7 But
these were mere passing admissions, and, after the last
passage, he goes on to explain that his opponents knew him,

" Werke," Weim. ed., 2, p. 384 ff. " Opp. Lat. var.," 2, p. 294 seq.

Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 196.

To Wenceslaus Link, July 10, 1518, " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 211.

^ An den Stier von Wittenberg," Bl. A.

" Auff des Stieres tzu Wiettenberg wiettende Replica," Bl. n. 3.

io Johann Lang, November 11, 1517, " Briefwechsel," 1, p 124

in 1520, soon after February 18, ibid., 2, p. 329.

LUTHER'S DISSEMBLING 15

and should know better than to rouse the hound " ; . . .
" he was by nature hot-blooded and his pen was easily
irritated " ; even if his own hot blood and customary
manner of writing had not of themselves excited him, the
thought of his opponents and their " horrible crimes "
against himself and the Word of God would have been
sufficient to do so.

Such was his self-confidence that it was not merely easy
to him, but a veritable pleasure, to attack all theologians
of every school ; they were barely able to spell out the
Bible. "Doctors, Universities, Masters, are mere empty
titles of which one must not stand in awe."1

2. The Veiling of the Great Apostasy

Besides his stormy violence another psychological trait
noticeable in Luther is the astuteness with which he conceals
the real nature of his views and aims from his superiors
both clerical and lay, and his efforts at least to strengthen
the doubts favourable to him regarding his attitude to the
hierarchy and the Church as it then was. Particularly in
important passages of his correspondence we find, side by
side with his call to arms, conciliatory, friendly and even
submissive assurances.

The asseverations of this sort which he made to his
Bishop, to the Pope, to the Emperor and to the Elector are
really quite surprising, considering the behaviour of the
Wittenberg Professor. In such cases Luther is deliberately
striving to represent the quarrel otherwise than it really
stood.

If the cause he advocated had in very truth been a great
and honourable one, then it imperatively called for frank
and honest action on his part.

The consequence of his peaceable assurances was to
postpone the decision on a matter of far-reaching import
ance to religion and the Christian conscience. Many who
did not look below the surface were unaware how they stood,
and an inevitable result of such statements of Luther's was,
that, in the eyes of many even among the nobles and the
learned, the great question whether he was right or wrong
remained too long undecided. He thus gained numerous
1 To Sylvius Egranus, March 24, 1518, ibid., 1, p. 174.

16 THE APOSTASY

followers from the ranks of the otherwise well-disposed, and,
of these, many, after the true aims of the movement had
become apparent, failed to retrace their steps.

In fairness, however, all the means by which the delay of
the negotiations was brought about must not be laid to
Luther's charge, and to his intentional misrepresentations.
It is more probable that he frequently assumed an attitude
of indecision because, to his excited mind, the stress of
unforeseen events, which affected him personally, seemed
to justify his use of so strange an expedient. Be this as it
may, we must make a distinction between his actions at the
various periods of his agitated life ; the further his tragic
history approaches the complete and open breach which
was the result of his excommunication, the less claim to
belief have his assurances of peace, whereas his earlier
protestations may at least sometimes be accorded the
benefit of a doubt.

To the assurances dating from the earlier stage belong
in the first place those made to his Ordinary, Hicronymus
Scultetus, Bishop of Brandenburg. To him on May 22, 1518,
he forwarded, together with a flattering letter, a copy of his
" Resolutions," in order that they might be examined.1

" Now dogmas," he states, have just recently been preached
regarding indulgences ; urged by some who had been annoyed
by them to give a strong denial of such doctrines, but being at
the same time desirous of sparing the good reputation of the
preachers— for upon it their work depended— he had decided to
deal with the matter in a purely disputatory form, the more so
as it was a difficult one, however untenable the position of his
opponents might be ; scholastics and canonists could be trusted
only when they quoted arguments in defence of their teaching,
more particularly from Holy Scripture. No one had, however,
answered his challenge or ventured to meet him at a disputation.
The Theses, on the other hand, had been bruited abroad beyond
his expectations, and were also being regarded as actual truths
which he had advocated. " Contrary to his hopes and wishes,"
he had therefore been obliged, "as a child and ignoramus in
theology," to explain himself further (in the Resolutions). Ho
did not, however, wish obstinately to insist upon anything con
tained in the latter, much being problematic, yea, even false.
He laid everything he had said at the feet of Holy Church and
his Bishop ; he might strike out what he pleased, or consign the
entire scribble to the flames. " I know well that Christ has no

1 " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 148. On the date see Kalkoff, " Z. fur KG.,"
31, 1910, p. 411.

LETTERS TO LEO X 17

need of me ; He proclaims salvation to the Church without me,
and least of all does He stand in need of great sinners. . . . My
timidity would have kept me for ever in my quiet corner had not
the presumption and unwisdom of those who invent new gospels
been carried so far."

When Bishop Scultctus thereupon declared himself
against the publication of the Resolutions, Luther promised
to obey ; he even made this known to those about the
Elector, through Spalatin the Court-preacher. On August
21, 1518, the work nevertheless appeared. Had Luther
really been " released " from his promise, as has been
assumed by one writer in default of any better explanation ? l

Let us consider more closely Luther's letter to Pope
Leo X, which has already been referred to cursorily (vol. i.,
p. 335). As is well known, it accompanied the copy of the
Resolutions which, with singular daring, and regardless of
the challenge involved in their errors, he had dedicated to the
Supreme Teacher of Christendom.2 Luther had lavished
flattery on his Bishop, but here he surpasses himself in
expressions of cringing humility.

He prostrates himself at the feet of the Pope with all that, he
has and is ; it is for His Holiness to make him alive, or kill him,
to summon or dismiss, approve or reprove, according to his good
pleasure ; his voice he will acknowledge as the voice of Christ,
and willingly die should he be deserving of death. He is " un
learned, stupid and ignorant in this our enlightened age," nothing
but dire necessity compels him, so he says, " to cackle like a
goose among the swans." " The most impious and heretical
doctrines " of the indulgence preachers have called him forth as
the defender of truth, indeed of the Papal dignity which is being
undermined by avaricious money-makers ; by means of the
Disputation he had merely sought to learn from his brothers,
and was never more surprised than at the way in which the
Theses had become known, whereas this had not been the case
with his other Disputations. Retract he cannot ; he has, how
ever, written the Resolutions in his justification, from which all
may learn how honestly and openly he is devoted to the Power
of the Keys. The publication of the Resolutions " under the
shield of the Papal name and the shadow of the Pope's protection
[Luther is here alluding to the dedication] renders his safety
assured."

As a matter of fact, the principal result of the dedication
to the Pope was a wider dissemination of the work among

1 Knaake, in " Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 522. Kostlin-Kawerau, 1,
pp. 170, 177.

2 On May 30, 1518, " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 200.

18 THE APOSTASY

the learned, Luther's Bishop, the weak and uninformed
Scultetus of Brandenburg, being likewise hindered from
taking any action against his unruly subject. The move,
if it really was intentional, had been well thought out.

After a lengthy delay Luther, in accordance with his
promise to Miltitz, drafted a second letter to Pope Leo X,
on January 5 or G, 1519. l

He, " the off-scouring of humanity, and a mere speck of dust,"
here, declares, as he had done shortly before at Augsburg, that he
cannot retract ; since his writings are already so widely known
and have met with so much support, a retractation would, he
says, be useless, and indeed rather injure the reputation of Rome
among the learned in Germany. He would never have believed,
so he says, that his efforts for the honour of the Apostolic See
could have led to his incurring the suspicion of the Pope ; he
will, nevertheless, be silent in future on the question of indulgences,
if silence is also imposed upon his opponents ; indeed, he will
publish " a work which shall make all see that they must hold
the Roman Church in honour, and not lay the foolishness of his
opponents to her charge, nor imitate his own slashing language
against the Church of Rome," for he is " absolutely convinced that
her power is above everything, and that nothing in Heaven or on
earth is to be pref erred to her, excepting only our Lord Jesus
Christ." This letter was not sent off, probably because it occa
sioned Miltitz some scruples.2 In any case, it is a document of
considerable interest.

Luther assumes an entirely different tone in the historic
third and last letter to Leo X, with which, in 1520, he
prefaced his work " Von der Freyheyt eynes Christen
Mcnschen " ; this letter was really written after October 13
of that same year.3

The very date of the letter has a history. It was published by
Luther in Latin and German, with the fictitious date of Septem
ber 6. The questionable expedient of ante-dating this letter had
been adopted by Luther to satisfy the diplomatist Miltitz, and
was due to the necessity of taking into account the Papal Bull
condemning Luther, which had already been published on Septem
ber 21, 1520 ; thereby it was hoped to avoid all appearance of
this letter having been wrung from Luther by the publication of
the Bull. This was what Miltitz 4 wrote at a time when he still

1 " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 442.

2 Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, pp. 224, 355.

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 3ff., 39 ff., Erl. ed., 53, p. 41, after the
German original ; " Opp. Lat. var.," p. 210, in Latin (" Brief wechsel,"
2, p. 496).

4 P. Kalkoff, " Die Miltitziade, eine kritische Nachlese zur Gesch.
des Ablassstreites," 1911. Miltitz— a man whose ability was by no
means equal to his vanity, and who owed whatever influence he pos-

LETTERS TO LEO X 19

entertained sanguine hopes of what the letter might achieve in
the interests of the Pope and peace. l Luther, for his part, looked
on the ante-dated letter as a manifesto which might considerably
weaken, and to his advantage, the effect of the Bull on public
opinion. The vehement blame therein contained regarding the
corruption of the Roman Church ought surely to lessen the
authority of the excommunication, while the loud appreciation
of the person and good qualities of Leo would naturally cause the
author of the excommunication (supposing it to have been pub
lished subsequently to the letter) to appear either ungrateful, or
misled by others.

The Roman Church, in the words of this letter, has become the
" most horrible Sodom and Babylon," a " den of murderers
worse than any other, a haunt of iniquity surpassing all others,
the head and empire of sin, of death and of damnation, so that
it would be impossible to imagine any increase in her wickedness
even were Antichrist to come in person. Yet you, Holy Father
Leo, are seated like a sheep among the wolves, like a Daniel
amidst the lions " ; Pope Leo, the author goes on to assert with
unblushing effrontery, is much to be pitied, for it is the hardest
lot of all that a man of his disposition should have to live in the
midst of such things ; Leo would do well to abdicate. He himself
(Luther) had never undertaken any evil against his person;
indeed, he only wished him well, and, so far as lay in him, had
attempted to assist him and the Roman Church with all his
might by diligent, heartfelt prayer. But " with the Roman See
all is over ; God's endless wrath has come upon it ; this See is
opposed to General Councils, and will not permit itself to be
reformed ; let this Babylon then rush headlong to its own
destruction ! "

After this follow renewed protestations of his peaceableness
throughout the whole struggle from the very beginning, attempts
to justify the strong language he had later on used against thick
headed and irreligious adversaries, for which he deserved the
41 favour and thanks " of the Pope, and descriptions of the wiles
of Eck who, at the Leipzig disputation, had picked up some
" insignificant chance expression concerning the Papacy " so as
to ruin him at Rome. This, of course, was all intended to weaken
the impression of the excommunication on the public. Another

sessed to his noble Saxon descent — was chosen to bring the Golden
Rose to the Elector of Saxony. His instructions were to induce
Frederick to abandon Luther's cause and to hand him over to the
ecclesiastical judges. Though Miltitz was a mere " nuntius et com-
missarius " with very restricted powers, he assumed great airs. The
Elector, who knew his man, soon found means to use him for his own
political aims. In September, 1519, when the Golden Rose had duly
been handed over, Miltitz's mission was at an end, and he was thereupon
engaged for three years by Frederick himself (Kalkoff, p. 33). His
further doings revealed more and more both his untrustworthiness
and his light-hearted optimism.

1 To the Elector of Saxony. October 14, 1520, in extract, " Brief-
wechsel," 2, p. 495, n. 3.

20 THE APOSTASY

bold assertion of his, of which the object was the same, ran :
" That I should retract what I have taught is out of the ques
tion ... I will not suffer any check or bridle to be placed on
the Word of God which teaches entire freedom, and neither can
nor may be bound." " I am ready to yield to every man in all
things, but the Word of God I cannot and will not forsake or
betray."

Luther also approached the Emperor Charles V in a letter
addressed to him at the time when Rome was about to take
action. He begged the Emperor to protect him, entirely
innocent as he was, against the machinations of his enemies,
especially as he had been dragged into the struggle against
his will. The letter was written August 30, 1520, l and
safely reached the Emperor, possibly through the good
offices of Sickingen ; when it was again submitted at the
Diet of Worms such was Charles's indignation that he tore
the missive to pieces.

In order rightly to appreciate its contents we must keep
in mind that Luther had it printed and published in a Latin
version in 1520, together with an " Oblation or Protestation "
to readers of every tongue, wherein he offers them on the
title-page his " unworthy prayers," and assures them of his
humble submission to the Holy Catholic Church, as whose
devoted son he was determined to live and die. 2 Nevertheless,
at the end of August3 part of his work " On the Baby
lonian Captivity of the Church " already stood in print, in
which, at the very commencement, the Papacy is declared
to be the Kingdom of Babylon and the empire of Nimrod,
the mighty hunter, and in which, as a matter of fact, an end
is made of the whole hierarchy and Church visible.

Luther's Prince, the Elector Frederick, had grave mis
givings concerning the hot-headed agitator who had fixed
his residence at the University of Wittenberg, though,
hitherto, thanks to the influence of Spalatin, his Court
Chaplain, he had extended to Luther his protection and
clemency. Both the Emperor, who was altogether Catholic
in his views, and the laws of the Empire, called for the
greatest caution on his part ; were the Church's rights
enforced as the imperial law allowed, then Luther was

1 " Briefwechsel," 2, p. 468.

" Werke," Weim. ed., G, p. 474 ff., " Opp. La*, var.," p. 5.
3 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 338.

LETTER TO CHARLES V 21

doomed. It was by the express advice of the Elector that
Luther drew up the above-mentioned letter to Charles V
and the pious " Protestation." It was to these documents
that the astute Elector appealed when, towards the end of
August, he warned his agent at Rome, Teutleben, of the
ostensibly dangerous disturbances which might result in
Germany from any violent action against Luther unless he
had been previously confuted by " strong and veracious
proofs and statements clearly set forth in writing."1 This
letter too had Luther himself for its author, Spalatin having,
as usual, acted as intermediary. Spalatin in fact received
both documents from him beforehand for revision.2

After these few words regarding the object and origin of the
celebrated letter to the Emperor, we may go on to quote some
of the statements it contains. Luther, at the commencement,
protests that he presents himself before Charles " like a flea
before the King of kings, who reigns over all." "It was against
my will that I came before the public, I wrote only because
others traitorously forced me to it by violence and cunning ;
never did I desire anything but to remain in the retirement of my
cell. My conscience and the best men bear me witness that I
have merely endeavoured to defend the truth of the Gospel
against the opinions introduced by superstitious traditions.
For three years I have, in consequence, been exposed to every
kind of insult and danger. In vain did I beg for pardon, offer
to be silent, propose conditions of peace, and request enlighten
ment. I am, nevertheless, persecuted, the sole object being to
stamp out the Gospel along with me."

Things being thus, "prostrate before him," he begs the Em
peror to protect, not indeed one who lies " poor and helpless in
the dust," but, at least, the treasure of truth, since he, the
greatest secular sovereign, has been entrusted with the temporal
sword for the maintenance of truth and the restraint of wicked
ness ; as for himself, he only desired to be called to account in a
fair manner, and to see his teaching either properly refuted, or
duly accepted by all. He was ready to betake himself to any
public disputation, so he declares in the " Protestation," and
would submit to the decision of any unprejudiced University ;
he would present himself before any judges, saintly or otherwise,
clerical or lay, provided only they were just, and that he was
given state protection and a safe conduct. If they were able to
convince him by proofs from Holy Scripture, he would become
a humble pupil, and obediently relinquish an enterprise under
taken — this, at least, he would assert without undue self-exalta
tion — only for the honour of God, the salvation of souls and the

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 339.

2 To Spalatin, August 23 and 31, 1520, " Brief wechsel," 2, pp. 464,
471.

22 THE APOSTASY

good of Christianity, simply because he was a doctor, and with
out any hope of praise or profit.

This manifesto was sufficient to satisfy the Elector
Frederick. The growing esteem in which Luther was held
and the delay in the settlement of his case served admirably
Frederick's purpose of making himself less dependent on the
Emperor and Empire. Calculation and politics thus played
their part in an affair which to some extent they shaped.

At a later date, it is true, Luther asserted in the preface
to his Latin works, that his success had been the result only
of Heaven's visible protection ; that he had quietly
" awaited the decision of the Church and the Holy Ghost " ;
only one thing, namely, the Catechism, he had been unable to
sec condemned by the interference of Rome ; to deny Christ
he could never consent. He was willing to confess his
former weaknesses " in order that— to speak like Paul-
men may not esteem me for something more than I am, but
as a simple man."1

From the pulpit, too. where honest truth usually finds
expression, he declared that it was not violence or human
effort or wisdom that had crowned his cause with the laurels
of victory, but God alone : "I studied God's Word and
preached and wrote on it ; beyond this I did nothing. The
Word of God did much while I slept, or drank Wittenberg
beer with my Philip [Melanchthon] and Amsdorf, so that
Popery has been weakened and suffered more than from the
attacks of any Prince or Emperor. I did nothing ; every
thing was achieved and carried out by the Word."2 His
object here is to oppose the violence and fanaticism of the
Anabaptists, and, if he points out to them that he has
achieved his mighty work without force of arms, and that
the great success of his movement was out of all proportion
to the means he could employ as professor and preacher —
the truth being that his success was chiefly due to the
circumstances of the time — there is much in his contention.

In the circle of his friends, at a later date, he thus ex
pressed his conviction: "I did not begin the difficult
business of my own initiative . . . rather it was God who
led me in a wonderful manner. . . . All happened in

1 " Opp. Lat. var.," 4, p. 329 seq.

2 Sermon of 1522, " Werke," Erl. ed., 28, p. 260 (2nd impression) ;
cp. ibid., p. 220 (1st impression), " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 3, p. 18.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH SPALATIN 23

accordance with God's will."1 "I thought I was doing
the Pope a service [by throwing light upon the question of
Indulgences] ; but I was forced to defend myself." " Had
I foreseen that things would turn out as, thank God, they
have, I would have held my tongue ; but had I kept silence
it would have fared much worse with the Papacy ; the
Princes and the Powers, enraged at its usurpations, would
finally have made an end of it." " I acted with moderation
and yet I have brought the Papacy to an evil day."2

.The genius of history could well hide its face were such
statements accepted as reliable testimonies.

Certain extracts from Luther's correspondence with
Spalatin deserve special consideration.

The worldly-wise Chaplain of Frederick, the Saxon
Elector, frequently gave Luther a hint as to how to proceed,
and, in return, his Wittenberg friend was wont to speak to
him more openly than to others. It is, however, necessary,
in order to arrive at a right appreciation of this correspond
ence, to distinguish between the letters written by Luther to
Spalatin as a personal friend and those he sent him with the
intention that they should reach the ruling Prince. It would
betray a great lack of critical discrimination were the whole
correspondence with Spalatin taken as the expression of
Luther's innermost thought. The fact that Spalatin's
letters to Luther arc no longer extant makes it even more
difficult to understand Luther's replies. Nevertheless, it is
easy to trace a persistent effort throughout the correspond
ence, to secure in the Saxon Electorate toleration both for
the new teaching and its originator without arousing the
misgivings of a prudent sovereign. The Court had to be
won over gradually and gently.

Acting on Spalatin's advice, Luther made the following declara
tion for the benefit of the Elector, on March 5, 1519 : " The
Roman Decrees must allow me full liberty with regard to the
true Gospel ; of whatever else they may rob me, I don't care
What more can I do, or can I be bound to anything further ? "3

" If they do not confute us on reasonable grounds and by
written proofs," he says, on July 10, 1520, in another letter

1 Colloquia, ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 178 seq.

2 Ibid., p. 170.

3 To Spalatin, " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 446 : " Bis monuisti,mi Spala-
tine, ut de fide et operibus turn de obedientia ecclesice Romance in apologia
mea vernacula mentionem facerem."

34 THE APOSTASY

addressed to Spalatin, but really intended for the Elector, " but
proceed against us by force and censures, then things will become
twice as bad in Germany as in Bohemia " [an allusion to the
Husite apostasy].1 " Where then can I turn for better instruc
tion ? "2 . . . "Let His Highness the Prince," he here writes,
coming to the question of the University professorship which pro
vided him with his means of livelihood, " put me out into the
street so that I may either be better instructed or confuted."
He, for his part, is ready to resign his public appointment, retire
into private life, allow others to take his place, and let all his
belongings be burned. But he also thinks it just that the Elector,
being personally unable to instruct him, should also refuse to
act either as judge or as executioner until a (true ecclesiastical)
sentence be pronounced. The principal thing is, so he says, that
" the question under discussion has not been solved, and my
enemies have not touched it with so much as a single word. The
Prince, under these circumstances, may well refuse to punish
anyone, even though he be a Turk or a Jew, for he is in ignorance
whether he be guilty or not ; his conscience bids him pause, and
how then can the Romanists demand that he should step in and
obey men rather than God ? "

Thereupon Frederick, the Elector, actually wrote to Rome
that Luther was ready to be better instructed from Holy Scripture
by learned judges ; no one could reproach him, the Prince ; he
was far from " extending protection to the writings and sermons
of Dr. Martin Luther," or " from tolerating any errors against
the Holy Catholic faith."3

At the very last moment before the promulgation of the Bull
of Excommunication, Luther made offers of " peace " to the
Roman Court through Cardinal Carvajal, professing to bo ready
to accept any conditions, provided he was left free to teach the
Word, and was not ordered to retract. This step was taken to
safeguard his public position and his future ; Spalatin, and
through him the Elector, received due notification of the fact on
August 23, 1520.4

Yet only a few weeks before, on July 10, he had already ex
pressly assured the same friend privately : " The die is cast ;
I despise alike the favour and the fury of the Romans ; I refuse
to be reconciled with them, or to have anything whatever to do
with them ... I will openly attack and destroy the whole
Papal system, that pestilential quagmire of heresies ; then there
will be an end to the humility and consideration of which I have
made a show, but which has only served to puff up the foes of
the Gospel."5

1 " Brief wechsel," 2, p. 433, where he begins, on an enclosed slip ;
" Quod si Princeps etiam hoc adiiciat, esse Lutheranam doctrinam," etc.
(a hint for the Elector's reply to Cardinal Petrucci). Cp. " Brief wech
sel," 2, p. 430, n. 1. 2 jbid., p. 429.

3 July 10, 1520, " Opp. Lat. var.," 2, p. 351.

* " Briefwechsel," 2, p. 464.

5 Ibid., p. 432 : " A me quidem iacta est alea, contemptus est Romanus
furor et favor, nolo eis reconciliari nee communicare in perpetuum," etc.

LUTHER'S MANY-SIDEDNESS 25

He had also not omitted, at the same time, to bring to the
knowledge of the Elector, through his same friend at Court, the
promise of a guard of one hundred noblemen, recently made by
Silvester von Schauenberg ; he likewise begged that an intima
tion of the fact might be conveyed to Rome, that they might
see that his safety was assured, and might then cease from
threatening him with excommunication and its consequences.
" Were they to drive me from Wittenberg," he adds, " nothing
would be gained, and the case would only be made worse ; for
my men-at-arms are stationed not only in Bohemia, but in the
very centre of Germany, and will protect me should I be driven
away, for they are determined to defy any assault." " If I have
these at my back then it is to be feared that I shall attack the
Romanists much more fiercely from my place of safety than if I
were allowed to remain in my professorship and in the service
of the Prince fat Wittenberg], which is what will certainly happen
unless God wills otherwise. Hitherto I have been unwilling to
place the Prince in any difficulty ; once expelled, all such scruples
will vanish."1

In conclusion, he extols his great consideration for the Prince.
"It is only the respect I owe my sovereign, and my regard for
the interests of the University [of Wittenberg] that the Romanists
have to thank for the fact that worse things have not been done
by me ; that they escaped so lightly they owe neither to my
modesty, nor to their action and tyranny."

All the diplomacy which he cultivated with so much
calculation did not, however, hinder his giving free course
to the higher inspiration with which he believed himself to
be endowed ; the result was a series of works which may be
numbered among the most effective of his controversial
writings. He there fights, to employ his own language,
" for Christ's sake new battles against Satan," as Deborah,
the prophetess, fought " new wars " for Israel (Judges
v. 8).2

In Luther we find a singular combination of the glowing
enthusiast and cool diplomatist. Just as it would be wrong
to see in him nothing but hypocrisy and deception without
a spark of earnestness and self-sacrifice, so too, at the other
extreme, we should not be justified in speaking of his success
as simply the result of enthusiasm and entire surrender of
earthly considerations. History discerns in him a com
batant full of passion indeed, yet one who was cool-headed
enough to choose the best means to his end.

1 " Brief wechsel," 2, p. 432.

2 To Conrad Saum, one of his followers, October 1, 1520, ibid.,
p. 484.

26 THE APOSTASY

3. Luther's Great Eeformation- Works— Radicalism and
Religion

It was at the time when the Bull of Excommunication was
about to be promulgated by the Head of Christendom that
Luther composed the Preface to the work entitled : "An
den christlichen Adel dcutscher Nation von des christlichen
Standes Besscrung."1 The booklet appeared in the middle
of August, and by the 18th four thousand copies were already
in circulation, eagerly devoured by a multitude of readers
hungry for books of all kinds. Staupitz's warning not to
publish it had come too late. " Luther's friends, the
Knights, were urging him on, and something had to be done
at once."2

This inflammatory pamphlet, so patronised by the
rebellious Knights, was, with its complaints against Home,
in part based on the writings of the German Nco-IIumanists.

Full of fury at the offences committed by the Papacy against
the German nation and -Church, Luther here points out to the
Lmperor, the Princes and the whole German nobility, the manner
in which Germany may break away from Rome, and undertake
its own reformation, for the bettering of Christianity. His
primary object is to show that the difference between the clerical
and lay state is a mere hypocritical invention. All men are
priests ; under certain circumstances the hierarchy must be set
aside, and the secular powers have authority to do so. " Most
of the Popes," so Luther writes with incredible exaggeration

have been without faith." " Ought not Christians, who are all
priests, also to have the right [like them, i.e. the bishops and
priests] to judge and decide what is true and what false in
matters of faith ? "

The work was, as Luther's comrade Johann Lang wrote to the
author, a bugle-call which sounded throughout all Germany
laither had to vindicate himself (even to his friends) against the
charge of blowing a blast of revolt." 3 It is not enough to
acquit him to point out in his defence that he had merely as
signed to the Rulers the right of employing force, and that his
intention was to " make the Word triumphant."

One of the most powerful arguments in Luther's work con
sisted in the full and detailed description of the Roman money
nrP^tV SfT^5! aund.other Countries being exploited on the
of thP Ph V°nr ^ 10unS,Tre necessary f°r the administration
Church. Luther had drawn his information on this subject

274 /rinted ^ " Werke'" Weim" ed" 6> P- 381 f. ; Erl. ed., 21, p.
2 Kolde, "Luther," 1, p. 256. 3 Ibid^ p 267>

DE CAPTIVITATE BABYLONICA 27

from the writings of the German Nee-Humanists, and from a
certain " Roman courtier " (Dr. Viccius) resident in Witten
berg.

It was, however, the promise he received of material help
which spurred Luther on to give a social aspect to his
theological movement and thus to ensure the support of the
disaffected Knights and Humanists. Concerning Silvester
von Schauenbcrg, he wrote to a confidant, YVcnccslaus Link :
" This noble man from Franccnia has sent me a letter . . .
with the promise of one hundred Franconian Knights for my
protection, should I need them . . . Home has written to
the Prince against me, and the same has been done by an
important German Court. Our German book addressed to
the whole Nobility of Germany on the amelioration of the
Church is now to appear ; that will be a powerful challenge
to Rome, for her godless arts and usurpations are therein
unmasked. Farewell and pray for me."1

By the end of August another new book by Luther, which,
like the former, is accounted by Luther's Protestant biogra
phers as one of the " great Reformation-works," was in the
press ; such was the precipitancy with which his turbulent
spirit drove him to deal with the vital questions of the day.
The title of the new Latin publication which was at oi.ce
translated into German was " Prelude to the Babylonish
Captivity of the Church."2

He there attacks the Seven Sacraments of the Church, of
which he retains only three, namely, Baptism, Penance, and the
Supper, and declares that even these must first be set free from
the bondage in which they are held in the Papacy, namely, from
the general state of servitude in the Church ; this condition had,
so he opined, produced in the Church many other perverse
doctrines and practices which ought to bo set aside, among these
being the whole matrimonial law as observed in the Papacy, and,
likewise, the celibacy of the clergy.

The termination of this work shows that it was intended to
incite the minds of its readers against Rome, in order to forestall
the impending Ban.

This end was yet better served by the third " reforming "
work " On the Freedom of a Christian Man," a popular tract

1 Letter of July 20, 1520, " Brief wechsel," 2, p. 444.

2 Printed in " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 484 ff. ; Erl. ed., " Opp.
Lat. var.," 5, p. 13 seq.

28 THE APOSTASY

in Latin and German with its dangerously seductive explana
tion of his teaching on faith, justification and works.1

In this work, as a matter of fact, Luther expresses with the
utmost emphasis his theological standpoint which hitherto he
had kept in the background, but which was really the source of
all his errors. As before this in the pulpit, so here also he derives
from faith only the whole work of justification and virtue
which, according to him, God alone produces in us ; this he
describes in language forcible, insinuating and of a character to
appeal to the people ; it was only necessary to have inwardly
experienced the power of faith in tribulations, temptations,
anxieties and struggles to understand that in it lay the true
freedom of a Christian man.

This booklet has in recent times been described by a Protestant
as " perhaps the most beautiful work Luther ever wrote, and an
outcome of religious contemplation rather than of theological
study."2 It does, as a matter of fact, present its wrong ideas in
many instances under a mystical garb, which appeals strongly
to the heart, and which Luther had made his own by the study
of older German models.

The new theory which, he alleged, was to free man from the
burden of the Catholic doctrine of good works, he summed up in
words, the effect of which upon the masses may readily be con
ceived : " By this faith all your sins are forgiven you, all the
corruption within you is overcome, and you yourself are made
righteous, true, devout and at peace ; all the commandments are
fulfilled, and you are set free from all things." 3 " This is Christian
liberty . . . that we stand in need of no works for the attain
ment of piety and salvation."4 " The Christian becomes by
faith so exalted above all things that he is made spiritual lord of
all ; for there is nothing that can hinder his being saved."6 By
faith in Christ, man, according to Luther, has become sure of
salvation ; he is " assured of life for evermore, may snap his
fingers at the devil, and need no longer tremble before the wrath
of God."

It was inevitable that the author should attempt to vindicate
himself from the charge of encouraging a false freedom. " Here
we reply to all those," he says in the same booklet,6 " who are
offended at the above language, and who say : ' Well, if faith is
everything and suffices to make us pious, why, then, are good
works commanded ? Let us be of good cheer and do nothing.' "
What is Luther's answer ? " No, my friend, not so. It might
indeed be thus if you were altogether an interior man, and had
become entirely spiritual and soulful, but this will not happen
until the Day of Judgment."

1 Printed in Latin, " Opp. Lat. var.," 4, p. 206 seq. ; " Werke,"
Weim. ed., 7, p. 39 ff. In German, " Werke," Wcim. ed., 7, p. 12 ff.
Erl. ed., 27, p. 173 ff.

2 Kolde, "Luther," 1, p. 274. 3 "Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 23.

* Ibid., p. 25. s Ibid^ p 27. « Ibid., p. 29 f.

THE FREEDOM OF THE CHRISTIAN 29

But in so far as man is of the world and a servant of sin, he
continues, he must rule over his body, and consort with other
men ; " here works make their appearance ; idleness is bad ;
the body must be disciplined in moderation and exercised by
fasting, watching and labour, that it may be obedient and
conformable to faith and inwardness, and may not hinder and
resist as its nature is when it is not controlled." " But," he
immediately adds this limitation to his allusion to works, " such
works must not be done in the belief that thereby a man becomes
pious in God's sight " ; for piety before God consists in faith
alone, and it is only " because the soul is made pure by faith and
loves God, that it desires all things to be pure, first of all its own
body, and wishes every man likewise to love and praise God."

In spite of all reservations it is very doubtful whether the
work " On the Freedom of a Christian Man " was capable
of improving the many who joined Luther's standard in
order to avail themselves of the new freedom in its secular
sense. " By faith " man became, so Luther had told them,
pure and free and " lord of all." They might reply, and as
a matter of fact later on they did : Why then impose the
duty of works, especially if the interior man has, according
to his own judgment, become strong and sufficiently
independent ? Such was actually the argument of the
fanatics. They added, " to become altogether spiritual and
interior," is in any case impossible, moreover, as, according
to the new teaching, works spring spontaneously from the
state of one who is justified, why then speak of a duty of
performing good works, or why impose an obligation to do
this or that particular good work here and now ? It is
better and easier for us to stimulate the spirit and the
interior life of faith in the soul merely in a general way and
in accordance with the new ideal.

As a matter of fact, experience soon showed that where
the traditional Christian motives for good works (reparation
for sin, the acquiring of merit with the assistance of God's
grace, etc.) were given up, the practice of good works
suffered.

There is, however, no doubt that there were some on
whom the booklet, with its heartfelt and moving exhortation
to communion with Christ, did not fail to make a deep
impression, more particularly in view of the formalism which
then prevailed.

" Where the heart thus hears the voice of Christ," says Luther
with a simple, popular eloquence which recalls that of the best

30 THE APOSTASY

old German authors, " it must needs become glad, receive the
deepest comfort and be filled with sweetness towards Christ,
loving Him and ever after troubling nothing about laws and
works. For who can harm such a heart, or cause it alarm ?
Should sin or death befall, it merely recollects that Christ's
righteousness is its own, and then, as we have said, sin dis
appears before faith in the Righteousness of Christ ; with the
Apostle it learns to defy death and sin, and to say : O death,
where is thy victory ? O death, where is thy sting ? The sting
of death is sin, but thanks be to God Who has given us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that death is swallowed up in
victory" (1 Cor. xv. 54 ff.).1

Pious phrases, such as these, which are of frequent occurrence,
demanded a stable theological foundation in order to produce
any lasting effects. In Luther's case there was, however, no
such foundation, and hence they are merely deceptive. The
words quoted, as a matter of fact, detract somewhat from the
grand thought of St. Paul, since the victory over sin and death
of which he speaks refers, not to the present life of the Faithful,
but to the glorious resurrection. The Apostle does, however,
refer to our present life in the earnest exhortation with which he
concludes (1 Cor. xv. 58) : " Therefore, my beloved brethren, be
ye steadfast and unmoveable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

Protestants frequently consider it very much to Luther's
credit that he insisted with so much force and feeling in his work
" On the Freedom of a Christian Man " upon the dignity which
faith and a state of grace impart to every calling, even to the
most commonplace ; his words, so they say, demonstrate that
life in the world, and even the humblest vocation, when illumined
by religion, has in it something of the infinite. This, however,
had already been impressed upon the people, and far more
correctly, in numerous instructions and sermons dating from
mediaeval times, though, agreeably with the teaching of the
Gospel, the path of the Evangelical Counsels, and still more the
Apostolic and priestly vocation, was accounted higher than the
ordinary secular calling. A high Protestant authority, of many
of whose utterances we can scarcely approve, remarks : " It is
usual to consider this work of Luther's as the Magna Charta of
Protestant liberty, and of the Protestant ideal of a worldly
calling in contradistinction to Catholic asceticism and renuncia
tion of the world. My opinion is that this view is a misapprehen
sion of Luther's work."2

It was this booklet, " On the Freedom of a Christian Man,"
that the author had the temerity to send to Pope Leo X, with an
accompanying letter (see above, p. 18), in which he professed to
lay the whole matter in the hands of the Sovereign Pontiff,
though in the work itself he denied all the Papal prerogatives.
In the latter denial Luther was only logical, for if the foundation

1 " Werke," Weim. ed. 7, p. 29.

2 Kohler, " Luther und die Kirchengesch," 1, p. 42.

REJECTION OF AUTHORITY 31

of the whole of the hierarchy be upset, what then remains of the
position of the Pope ?

To appreciate the effects of the three works just mentioned
it may be worth our while to examine more closely two
characteristics which there appear in singular juxtaposition.
One is the deeply religious tone which, as we said, is so note
worthy in Luther's book " On the Freedom of a Christian
Man." The other is an unmistakable tendency to dissolve
all religion based on authority.

Luther, as we said before, positively refused to have any
thing to do with a religion of merely human character ; yet,
if we only draw the necessary conclusions from certain
propositions which he sets up, we find that he is not very
far removed from such a religion ; he is, all unawares, on the
high road to the destruction of all authority in matters of
faith. This fact makes the depth of religious feeling evinced
by the author appear all the more strange to the experi
enced reader.1

Some examples will make our meaning clearer.

In the work addressed to the Christian nobility, Luther con
fers on every one of the Faithful the fullest right of private
judgment as regards both doctrines and doctors, and limits it by
no authority save the Word of God as explained by the Christian
himself.

"If wre all are priests" — a fact already proved, so he says —
" how then shall \ve not have the right to discriminate and judge
what is right or wrong in faith ? What otherwise becomes of the
saying of Paul in 1 Corinthians ii. [15], 'The spiritual man
judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man,' and
again, ' Having all the same spirit of faith,' 2 Corinthians iv.
[13] ? How then should we not perceive, just as well as an un
believing Pope, what is in agreement with faith and what not ?
These and many other passages are intended to give us courage
and make us free, so that wo may not be frightened away from
the spirit of liberty, as Paul calls it (2 Cor. iii. [17]), by the
fictions of the Popes, but rather judge freely, according to our
understanding of the Scriptures, of all things that they do or
leave undone, and force them to follow what is better and not
their own reason."2

1 The true character of such utterances of Luther can be best
judged from the results they produced. " The effect not merely of
the radical tendencies, but of Luther's sermons, was chiefly to make
the people believe that the freedom of a Christian was to be found in
the utmost contempt for all law, whether human or Divine," G.
Kriiger, "Phil. Melanchthon, eine Charakterskizze," 1900, p. 14.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 412 ; Erl. ed., 21, p. 288.

32 THE APOSTASY

" A little man," he had said already, " may have a right
comprehension ; why then should we not follow him ? " and,
with an unmistakable allusion to himself, he adds : surely more
trust is to be placed in one " who has Scripture on his
side."1

Such assertions, as a matter of fact, destroy all the claims
made by the visible Church to submission to her teaching.
Further, they proclaim the principle of the fullest independence
of the Christian in matters of faith ; nothing but private judg
ment and personal inspiration can decide. Luther failed to see
that, logically, every barrier must give way before this principle
of liberty, and that Holy Scripture itself loses its power of
resistance, subjectivism first invading its interpretation and
then, in the hands of the extremer sort of critics, questioning its
value and divine origin. The inner consequences of Luther's
doctrine on freedom and autonomy have been clearly pointed
out even by some of the more advanced Protestant theologians.
Adolf Harnack, for instance, recently expressed the truth neatly
when he said that " Kant and Fichte were both of them hidden
behind Luther."2

The second work " On the Babylonish Captivity," with its
sceptical tendency, of which, however, Luther was in great part
unconscious, also vindicates this opinion.

The very arbitrariness with which the author questions facts
of faith or usages dating from the earliest ages of the Church,
must naturally have awakened in such of his readers as were
already predisposed a spirit of criticism which' bore a startling
resemblance to the spirit of revolt. Here again, in one passage,
Luther comes to the question of the right of placing private
judgment in matters of religion above all authority. He hero
teaches that there exists in the assembly of the Faithful, and
through the illumination of the Divine Spirit, a certain " interior
sense for judging concerning doctrine, a sense, which, though it
cannot be demonstrated, is nevertheless absolutely certain." Ho
describes faith, as it comes into being in every individual Christian
soul, " as the result of a certitude directly inspired of God, a
certitude of which he himself is conscious."3

What this private judgment of each individual would lead to
in Holy Scripture, Luther shows by his own example in this very
work ; he already makes a distinction based on the " interior
sense " between the various books of the Bible, i.e. those stamped
with the true Apostolic Spirit, and, for instance, the less trust
worthy Epistle of St. James, of which the teaching contradicts
his own. Kostlin, with a certain amount of reserve, admits :
" This he gives us to understand, agreeably with his principles

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., p. 411 (287).

"Preussische Jahrbiicher," 1909, Hft. 1, p. 35. In his review of
Denifle-Weiss, vol. ii., P. Albert Weiss, in many passages, describes the
consequences alluded to above.

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 0, p. 561. " Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 102.
The summary is from Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 349.

REJECTION OF AUTHORITY 33

and experience ; it is not our affair to prove that it is tenable or
to vindicate it."1

Luther says at the end of the passage in question : "Of this
question more elsewhere." As a matter of fact, however, he
never did treat of it fully and in detail, although it concerned the
fundamentals of religion ; for this omission he certainly had
reasons of his own.

A certain radicalism is perceptible in the work " On the
Babylonish Captivity," even with regard to social matters.
Luther lays it down : "I say that no Pope or Bishop or any other
man has a right to impose even one syllable upon a Christian
man, except with his consent ; any other course is pure tyranny." 2
It is true that ostensibly he is only assailing the tyranny of
ecclesiastical laws, yet, even so, he exceeds all reasonable limits.
With regard to marriage, the foundation of society, so un
guarded is he, that, besides destroying its sacramental character,
lie brushes aside the ecclesiastical impediments of marriage as
mere man-made inventions, and, speaking of divorce based on
these laws, he declares that to him bigamy is preferable.3 When
a marriage is dissolved on account of adultery, he thinks re
marriage allowable to the innocent party. He also expresses the
fervent wish that the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians vii. 15,
according to which the Christian man or woman deserted by an
infidel spouse is thereby set free from the marriage tie, should
also apply to the marriages of Christians where the one party has
maliciously deserted the other ; in such a case, the offending
party is no better than an infidel. Regarding the impediment of
impotence on the man's part, he conceives the idea 4 that the

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 350. " With the nature and extent of
the Christian liberty which he [here] claimed he might have shocked
even libertines. Nor did he shrink from advocating it elsewhere in the
same work." Ibid., p. 345.

" Dico itaque : Neque papa neque episcopus neque ullus hominum
habet ins unius syllabce const ituendce super christianumhominem, nisi id fiat
eiusdem consensu ; quidquid aliter fit, tyrannico spiritu fit " (p. 536 [68]).
Cp. p. 554 [93], concerning the superfluousness of laws : " Hoc scio,
nullam rempublicam legibus feliciter administrari. . . . Quod si adsit
eruditio divina cum prudentia naturali, plane superfluum et noxium
est scriptas leges habere ; super omnia autem caritas nullis prorsus
legibus indiget " (p. 555 [94]). " Christianis per Christum libertas
donata est super omnes leges hominum.'" On p. 558 [98], with regard
to the alleged corruption of the marriage law : " Ut nutta remedii spes
sit, nisi, revocato libertatis evangelio, secundum ipsum, exstinctis semel
omnibus omnium hominum legibus, omnia iudicemus et regamus. Amen."
This latter declaration of war, and other things too, are not found in
the Jena and Wittenberg editions. In all these utterances we see
the excessive zeal of a theorist devoid of experience whose eyes are
blind to the consequences. Many, indeed, are those who in the course
of history have been equally precipitate in pronouncing on questions
of moment, regardless of the number of their readers.

3 p. 555 [100] : " Digamiam malim quam divortium, sed an liceat,
ipse non audeo definire."

4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 348.

34 THE APOSTASY

wife might, without any decision of the court, " live secretly
with her husband's brother, or with some other man."1 In the
later editions of Luther's works this statement, as well as that
concerning bigamy, has been suppressed.

Luther, so he says, is loath to decide anything. But neither
are popes or bishops to give decisions ! " If, however," says
Luther, " two well-instructed and worthy men were to agree in
Christ's name, and speak according to the spirit of Christ, then I
would prefer their judgment before all the Councils, which are
now only looked up to on account of the number and outward
reputation of the people there assembled, no regard being paid to
their learning and holiness."2 Apart from other objections, the
stipulation concerning the " Spirit of Christ," here made by the
mystic, renders his plan illusory, for who is to determine that the
" Spirit of Christ " is present in the judgment of the two "well-
instructed men " ? Luther seems to assume that this determina
tion is an easy matter. First and foremost, who is to decide
whether these men are really well-instructed ? There were many
whose opinion differed from Luther's, and who thought that
this and such-like demands, made in his tract " On the Babylonish
Captivity," opened the door to a real confusion of Babel.

Neither can the work " On the Freedom of a Christian Man "
be absolved from a certain dangerous radicalism. A false spirit
of liberty in the domain of faith breathes through it. The faith
which is here extolled is not faith in the olden and true meaning
of the word, namely the submission of reason to what God has
revealed and proposes for belief through the authority He Him
self instituted, but faith in the Lutheran sense, i.e. personal trust
in Christ and in the salvation He offers. Faith in the whole
supernatural body of Christian truth comes here so little into
account that it is reduced to the mere assurance of salvation.
All that we are told is that the Christian is " free and has power
over all " by a simple appropriation of the merits of Christ ; he
is purified by the mere acceptance of the merciful love revealed
in Christ ; " this faith suffices him," and through it he enjoys
all the riches of God. And this so-called faith is mainly a matter
of feeling ; a man must learn to " taste the true spirit of interior
trials," just as the author himself, so he says, " in his great
temptations had been permitted to taste a few drops of faith."3

1 p. 558 [99] : " Consulam, ut cum consensu viri — cum iam non sit
maritus, sed simplex et solutus cohabitator — misceatur alteri vel fratri
mariti, occulto tamen matrimonio, et proles imputetur putativo, ut dicunt,
patri." Cp. his disgusting language regarding the ecclesiastical impedi
ments of marriage, p. 554, [93] : " Quid vendunt [Romanenses] ?
Vulvas et veretra. Merx scilicet dignissima mercatoribus istis, proa
avaritia et impietate plus quam sordidissimis et obscoenissimis . . . ut
in ecclesia Dei loco sancto [sit] abominatio ista, quce venderet hominibus
publice utriusque sexus pudibunda, seu, ut scriptura vocat, ignominias
et turpitudines, quas tamen antea per vim legum suarum rapuissent."

2 p. 560 [101].

3 Cp. the Latin edition, " Opp. Lat. var.," 4, p. 206 seq. The
summary is from Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 358 ff.

THE PIOUS RADICAL 35

Faith is thus not only robbed of its true meaning and made into
a mere personal assurance, but the assurance appears as some
thing really not so easy of attainment, since it is only to be
arrived at by treading the difficult path of spiritual suffering.

Luther thereby strikes a blow at one of the most vital points
of positive religion, viz. the idea of faith.

The author, in this same work, 1 again reminds us that by faith
all are priests, and therefore have the right " to instruct Chris
tians concerning the faith and the freedom of believers " ; for
the preservation of order, however, all cannot teach, and there
fore some are chosen from amongst the rest for this purpose. It
is plain how, by this means, a door was opened to the introduction
of diversity of doctrine and the ruin of the treasure of revelation.

The religious tone which Luther assumed in the work
" On the Freedom of a Christian Man," and his earnestness
and feeling, made his readers more ready to overlook the
perils for real religion which it involved. This considera
tion brings us to the other characteristic, viz. the pietism
which, as stated above, is so strangely combined in the three
works with intense radicalism.

The religious feeling which pervades every page of the
" Freedom of a Christian Man " is, if anything, overdone.
In wrhat Luther there says we see the outpourings of one
whose religious views are quite peculiar, and who is bent on
bringing the Christian people to see things in the same light
as he does ; deeply imbued as he is with his idea of salvation
by faith alone, and full of bitterness against the alleged
disfiguring of the Church's life by meritorious works, he
depicts his own conception of religion in vivid and attractive
colours, and in the finest language of the mystics. It is easy
to understand how so many Protestant writers have been
fascinated by these pages, indeed, the best ascetic writers
might well envy him certain of the passages in which he
speaks of the person of Christ and of communion with Him.
Nevertheless, a fault which runs through the whole work is,
as already explained, his tendency to narrow the horizon of
religious thought and feeling by making the end of every
thing to consist in the mere awakening of trust in Christ as
our Saviour. Ultimately, religion to him means no more
than this confidence ; he is even anxious to exclude so well-
founded and fruitful a spiritual exercise as compassion with
the sufferings of our crucified Redeemer, actually calling it

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 58. " Opp. Lat. var.," 4, 233.

36 THE APOSTASY

"childish and effeminate stupidity."1 How much more
profound and fruitful was the religious sentiment of the
genuine mystics of the Church, whom the contemplation of
the sufferings of Christ furnished with the most beautiful
and touching subject of meditation, and who knew how to
find a source of edification in all the truths of faith, and not
only in that of the forgiveness of sins. Writers such as they,
described to their pious readers in far greater detail the
person of Christ, the honour given by Him to God and the
virtues He had inculcated.

The booklet " To the Nobility," likewise, particularly in
the Preface, throws a strange sidelight on the pietism of
the so-called great Reformation works.

Here, in his exordium to the three tracts, the author seeks to
win over the minds of the piously disposed. The most earnest
reformer of the Church could not set himself to the task with
greater fear, greater diffidence and humility than he. Luther,
as he assures his readers, is obliged " to cry and call aloud like a
poor man that God may inspire someone to stretch out a helping
hand to the unfortunate nation." He declares that such a task
" must not be undertaken by one who trusts in his power and
wisdom, for God will not allow a good work to be commenced in
trust in our own might and ability." " The work must be under
taken in humble confidence in God, His help being sought in
earnest prayer, and with nothing else in view but the misery
and misfortune of unhappy Christendom, even though the people
have brought it on themselves. . . . Therefore let us act wisely
and in the fear of God. The greater the strength employed, the
greater the misfortune, unless all is done in the fear of God and in
humility."2

Further on, even in his most violent attacks, the author is
ever insisting that it is only a question of the honour of Christ :
"it is the power of the devil and of End-Christ [Antichrist] that
hinders what would be for the reform of Christendom ; therefore
let us beware, and resist it even at the cost of our life and all we
have. . . . Let us hold fast to this : Christian strength can do
nothing against Christ, as St Paul says (2 Cor. xiii. 8). We can
do nothing against Christ, but only for Him."3

In his concluding words, convinced of his higher mission, he

1 "Opp. Lat. var," 4, 233. Some preach, " Ut affectus humanos
moveant ad condolendum Christo ad indignandum ludceis et id
genus alia pu'erilia et muliebria delir amenta." One must preach, " eo
fine, quo fides in cum promoveatur " ; this preaching is in agreement
with the teaching according to which in Christ, "omnium domini
sumus, et quidquid egerimus, coram Deo placitum et acceptum esse
confidimus."

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 405 ; Erl. ed., 21, p. 278 f

3 Ibid., p. 414 [291].

LUTHER ON HIS MISSION 37

declares that he was " compelled " to come forward. "God has
forced me by them [my adversaries] to open my mouth still
further, and, because they are cowards, to preach at them, bark
at them, roar at them and write against them. . . . Though I
know that my cause is good, yet it must needs be condemned on
earth and be justified only by Christ in heaven."1 When a
mission is Divine, then the world must oppose it. — One wonders
whether everything that meets with disapproval must therefore
be accounted Divine.

It is the persuasion of his higher mission that explains the
religious touch so noticeable in these three writings. The power
of faith there expressed refers, however, principally to his own
doctrine and his own struggles. If we take the actual facts into
account, it is impossible to look on these manifestations of
religion as mere hypocrisy. The pietism we find in the tract
" To the German Nobility " is indeed overdone, and of a very
peculiar character, yet the writer meant it as seriously as he did
the blame he metes out to the abuses of his age.

We still have to consider the religious side of the work " On
the Babylonish Captivity." Originally written in Latin, and
intended not so much for the people as for the learned, this tract,
even in the later German version, is not clad in the same popular
religious dress as the other two. Like the others, nevertheless,
it was designed as a wreapon to serve in the struggle for a religious
renewal, especially in the matter of the Sacraments. Among
other of its statements, which are characteristic of the direction
of Luther's mind, is the odd-sounding request at the very com
mencement : "If my adversaries are worthy of being led back
by Christ to a more reasonable conception of things, then I beg
that in His Mercy He may do so. Are they not worthy, then I
pray that they may not cease to write their books against me,
and that the enemies of truth may deserve to read no others."2
His conclusion is : He commits his book with joy to the hands
of all the pious, i.e. of those who wish to understand aright the
sense of Holy Scripture and the true use of the Sacraments.3
He further declares in an obstinate and mocking manner his
intention of ever holding fast to his own opinion. His more
enlightened contemporaries saw with anxiety how every page of
his work teemed with signs of self-deception and blind prejudice,
and of a violent determination to overthrow religious views which
had held the field for ages. To those who cared to reflect, Luther's
religiousness appeared in the light of a religious downfall, and as
the chaotic manifestation of a desire to demolish all those vener
able traditions which encumbered the way of the spirit of
revolt.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 468 f. [360 f.].

2 Ibid., 500 f. " Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 20.

3 Ibid., p. 173 f. [ = 118].

38 THE APOSTASY

4. Luther's Followers. Two Types of His Cultured Partisans :
Willibald Pirkheimer and Albert Diirer

Owing to the huge and rapid circulation of the three
" Reformation works," the number of Luther's followers
among all classes increased with prodigious speed.

The spirit of the nation was roused by his bold words,
the like of which had never before been heard.

Too many of those whose Catholicism was largely a
matter of form were seduced by the new spirit that was
abroad, and by the " liberty of the Gospel," before they
rightly saw their danger. The fascination of the promised
freedom was even increased by Luther's earnest exhorta
tions to commence a general reformation, to cultivate the
inner man, and to assert the independence of the German
against immoral Italians, the extortioners of the Curia and
the spiritual tyranny of the Pope. Even better minds, men
who despised the masses and their vulgar agitation, were
powerfully attracted. At no other time, save possibly at
the French Revolution, was mankind more profoundly
stirred by the force of untried ideas, which with suggestive
power suddenly invaded every rank of society. Scholars,
writers, artists, countless men who had heard nothing of
Luther that was not to his advantage, and who, from lack
of theological knowledge, were unable fully to appreciate
the spirit of his writings, were carried away by the man who
so courageously attacked the crying abuses which they
themselves had long bewailed.

In explaining this universal commotion we cannot lay too
great stress upon a factor which also played a part in it, viz.
the comparative ignorance of most people regarding Luther,
his antecedents and his aims. Eminent men, and his own
contemporaries, Avho allowed themselves to be borne away
by the current, were incredibly ignorant of Luther as he is
now known to history. They knew practically nothing of
the whole arsenal of letters, tracts and reports which to-day
lie open before us and are being read, compared and anno
tated by industrious scholars. It is difficult for us at the
present day to imagine the condition of ignorance in which
even cultured men were, in the sixteenth century, regarding
the Lutheran movement, especially at its inception.

To show the seduction and fascination exercised by

WILLIBALD PIRKHEIMER 39

Luther's writings even on eminent men, we may take two
famous Nurembcrgers, Willibald Pirkheimcr and Albert
Diirer.

Willibald Pirkheimer, a .Senator of Nuremberg and
Imperial Councillor, was one of the most respected and
cultured Humanists of his day. He edited or translated
many patristic works. After taking a too active part in the
Reuchlin controversy against the theologians of Cologne,
owing to his zeal for a reformed method of studies, he put
himself on Luther's side, again out of enthusiasm for reform,
and under the impression that he had found in his doctrine
a more profound conception of religion. He received Luther
as his guest when he passed through Nuremberg on his
return journey from Augsburg, after his appearance before
Cardinal Cajetan. In a letter to Emscr he declared that the
learned men of Wittenberg had earned undying fame by
having been, after so many centuries, the first to open their
eyes, and to distinguish between the true and the false, and
to banish from Christian theology a bad philosophy.1 Eck
even inserted his name in the Bull of Excommunication
which he published, though Pirkheimer was absolved on
appealing to Pope Leo X. He wrote, in Luther's favour, a
letter to Hadrian VI which, however, was perhaps never
despatched, in which he calls him " a good and learned
man." The entire blame for the quarrel wras thrust by this
disputatious and peculiar man on Eck and the Dominicans.

In later years, however, he withdrew more and more from
the Lutheran standpoint, chiefly, as it would appear, be
cause he perceived the unbridled nature of the Reformers'
views and the bad moral and social effects of the innovations.
He died in 1530 at peace with the Catholic Church.

" I had hoped at the commencement," he wrote already in
1527 to Zasius in Freiburg, " that we might have obtained a
certain degree of liberty, but of a purely spiritual character.
Now, however, as we see with our own eyes, everything is per
verted to the lust of the flesh, so that the last state is far worse
than the first."2 He admitted his definite turning away from
Lutheranism in a letter to Kilian Leib, Prior of the Rebdorf
Monastery (1520), in which he at the same time relates the
reason of his previous enthusiasm : "I hoped that [by Luther's
enterprise] the countless abuses would be remedied, but I found

1 See Dollinger, " Die Reformation," 1, p. 162.

2 Ibid., p. 165.

40 THE APOSTASY

myself greatly deceived ; for, before the former errors had been
expelled, others, much more intolerable, and compared to
which the earlier were mere child's play, forced themselves in.
I therefore began to withdraw myself gradually, and the more
attentively I considered everything the more clearly I recognised
the cunning of the old serpent."1

His letter to his friend Tschertte in Vienna (1530) also contains
a " loud lamentation and outburst of anger against Luther's
work." We can see that he has entirely broken with it.2 In this
letter he says : "I admit that at first I too was a good Lutheran,
like our departed Albert [Diirer]. We hoped thereby to better
the Roman knavery and the roguery of the monks and parsons."
But the contrary was the result ; those of the new faith were
even worse than those whom they were to reform. Members of
the Council had also hoped for a general improvement of morals,
but had found themselves shamefully deceived. He knows for
certain — -a valuable admission in view of the unhistorical idea of
some Catholics that Luther's partisans were all frivolous men — •
that " many pious and honourable men " lent a willing ear to
his teaching ; " hearing beautiful things said of faith and the
holy Gospel, they fancy all is real gold that glitters, whereas it is
hardly brass."3

Another statement against Luther, made by this same scholar
in 1528, is still stronger : " Formerly almost all men applauded
at the sound of Luther's name, but now nearly all are seized with
disgust on hearing it ... and not without cause, for apart
from his audacity, impudence, arrogance and slanderous tongue
he is also guilty of lying to such an extent that he cannot refrain
from any untruth ; what he asserts to-day he does not scruple
to deny to-morrow ; he is instability itself."4

1 See Dollinger, "Die Reformation," I2, p. 586 f. Cp. 169 ff.,
1, p. xv. Also J. Schlecht, " K. Leib's Briefwechsel und Diarien,"
Minister, 1909, p. 12.

2 Friedr. Roth, " Wilh. Pirkheimer," Halle, 1887 (Schriften des
Verems fur Reformationsgesch., v. 4). The author says, Pirkheimer's
final opinion on Lutheranism is summed up in the words : " God keep
all pious men, countries and peoples from such teaching, for where
it is there is no peace, quiet or unity." Though Pirkheimer confessed

with energy that he was once more a member of the olden Catholic
Church, ' he nevertheless remained as much a Humanist as a Catholic
as he had been as a Protestant. Yet that he still saw some good in
Luther s cause is clear from what Melanchthon writes of him as late as
April, 1530. " Fuimus apud Pirchamerum hodie, ego et lonas qui de
te et causa honorifice sentit." To Luther, April 28, 1530, "Briefwechsel
Luthers, 7, p. 310. P. Drews, " Pirkheimers Stellung zur Reforma
tion, Leipzig, 1887, is more sceptical regarding his return to Catho
licism, though he brings forward no definite proofs to the contrary.
He himself mentions how Cochlseus, in a letter of March 10, 1529,
invited Pirkheimer (" Pirkheimer Opp.," ed. Goldast, p. 396) to write
a satire m verse on Luther after the model of his own " Luther us

-

3 Dollinger, ibid., p. 168.

" Werke," Weim. ed., 26, p. 514.

ALBERT DURER 41

We sec also from the example of Albert Diircr of Nurem
berg, who is rightly accounted one of the greatest masters
of Art, how overwhelming an influence the stormy energy,
the calls for reform and the religious tone of Luther's
writings could exert on the susceptible minds of the day.
Of a lively temper,1 full of imagination and religious idealism,
as his sixteen wonderful illustrations to the Apocalypse
proved in 1498, he, like his Nuremberg friend Willibald
Pirkhcimer, gave himself up from the very first to the
influence of the Lutheran writings, with which to a certain
extent he was in sympathy. In his enthusiasm for freedom
he considered that Christianity was too much fettered by
oppressive rules of human invention, and was profoundly
troubled by the desecration of holy things introduced in
many regions by the greed and avarice of a worldly-minded
clergy.

In 1520 he wrote to Spalatin : " God grant that I may meet
with Dr. Martinus Luther, for then I will make a careful sketch
of him and engrave it in copper, so that the memory of the
Christian man may long be preserved, for he has helped me out
of much anxiety." He believed that light had been brought to
him by means of Luther's spiritual teaching, and a little further
on he calls him " a man enlightened by the Holy Ghost and one
who has the Spirit of God " ; these words, which came from the
depths of his soul, are an echo of Luther's writings. Altogether
prepossessed in Luther's favour, though he never formally
abandoned the Church, he wrote in his Diary, on May 17, 1521 ;
" The Papacy resists the liberty of Christ by its great burden of
human commandments, and in shameful fashion sucks our
blood and robs us of our sweat for the benefit of idle and im
moral folk, while those who are sick are parched with thirst and
left to die of hunger."

Being at that time somewhat anxious with regard to his
material position, he had gone to Holland, and had heard of
Luther's supposed capture and disappearance after the Diet of
Worms. In the same Memorandum, therefore, he summons
Erasmus to undertake a reform of the Church : " O Erasmus
Roderdamus, why hangest thou back ? Listen, O Christian knight,
ride forth by the side of the Lord Christ and defend the cause of
truth. . . . Then the gates of Hell, the Roman See, shall, as
Christ says, not prevail against thee . . . for God is on the side
of the holy Christian Churches." And he adds in Apocalyptic
tone : " Await the completing of the number of those who have
been slain innocently, and then I will judge."2 Yet even on this

1 His father Albert came from Eptas in Hungary ; he was a goldsmith.

2 A. Diirer's " Schriftlicher Nachlass," ed. Lange and Fuchse,
1893, p. 161 ff.

42 THE APOSTASY

journey through the Netherlands, Diirer showed interest in the
manifestations of Catholic life, attended the Catholic services,
and, with his wife, duly made his Easter Confession.

Two thoughts, the oppression of the Faithful by man-made
commandments and the unjust extortion of their money, held
him under the spell of Luther's writings with their promise of
deliverance.

" O God, if Luther is dead who will in future expound the
Holy Gospel to us so clearly ? What would he not have written
for us in ten or twenty years ! " " Never," he says, " has anyone
written more clearly during the last 140 years [i.e. since the
death of Wiclif in 1381], never has God given to anyone so
evangelical a spirit." So transparent is his teaching, that
" everyone who reads Dr. Martin Luther's books sees that it is
the Gospel which he upholds. Hence they must be held sacred
and not be burnt."1

The man who wrote this was clearly better able to wield
the pencil or brush than to pass theological judgment on the
questions under discussion. Diirer was already among the
most famous men of the day. Led astray by the praise of
the Humanists, he, and other similarly privileged minds,
easily exceeded the limits of their calling, abetted as they
were by the evil tendency to individualism and personal
independence prevalent among the best men of the day.

On his return to Nuremberg in the autumn of 1521 he
lived entirely for his art and remote from all else, clinging to
the opinions he had already embraced, or at least suspend
ing his judgment. How greatly the real or imaginary
abuses in Catholic practice were capable of exciting him,
especially where avarice appeared to play a part, is proved
by his indignant inscription in 1523 to an Ostendorfer
woodcut, representing the veneration of a picture of our
Lady at Ratisbon : " This spectre has risen up against
Holy Scripture at Regenspurg . . . out of greed of gain";
his wrish is that Mary should be rightly venerated " in
Christ." In 1526 he presented his picture of the four
Apostles, now the ornament of the Munich Pinacothek, to
the Nuremberg bench of magistrates who had just estab
lished Protestantism in the city, exhorting them " to accept
no human inventions in place of the Word of God, for God
will not allow His Word to be either added to or detracted
from." The " warnings," in the form of texts, afterwards

1 A Durer's " Schriftlicher Nachlass," ed. Lange and Fuchse,
1893, p. 161 ff.

ALBERT DURER 43

removed, which he placed in the mouths of Peter, John,
Paul and Mark in his celebrated picture, also refer to religious
seducers and false prophets, more particularly those who
seize on the possessions of the poor through avarice and
greed. We can hardly do otherwise than apply these texts
to the abuses which met with his disapproval, and alleged
false teaching of the Catholic Church. It is plain that the
Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria understood them in this
sense when he ordered their removal. This view is also
supported by Diirer's letter in 1524 to Nicholas Kratzer, in
which he says : " We arc derided as heretics," but this must
be endured. At a later date Pirkhcimer seems to have re
garded him as merely " on the way to becoming a Lutheran "
(p. 40). It cannot be affirmed with certainty that, when he
died suddenly at Nuremberg, on April 6, 1528, he was either
entirely convinced of the justice of Luther's cause or had
reverted to Catholicism.1 At any rate, his art grew up on
the soil of the Church.

Luther himself spoke of him after his death, on the strength
of the reports received, and, perhaps, also from a desire to
reckon him amongst his followers, in a letter to the Nuremberg
Humanist Eobanus Hessus, as " the best of men," and one to
be congratulated " for that Christ allowed him to die so happily
after such preparation " (" tarn instructum et beato fine "X sparing
him the sight of the evil days to come. " Therefore may he rest
in peace with his fathers, Amen."2 Melanchthon says a few
words of regret on the death of the great artist, but from them
nothing definite can be gathered. Venatorius, the Lutheran
preacher at Nuremberg, preached his panegyric.3 In his letter
to Tschertte, in 1530, on the other hand, Pirkheimer counts him,
like himself, 'among those who were at first good Lutherans, but
were afterwards disappointed in their hopes. " The close friend
ship which united Diirer to this passionate and conceited scholar,
xvho could not brook the slightest contradiction, is, in fact, a
proof which we must not undervalue, of a certain affinity in their

1 On his adhesion to Protestantism, see M. Zucker, ^ " Albrecht
Diirer," 1900, chap, xvi., and Lange in the " Grenzbote," vol. Iv. 1,
with reasons which are, however, open to criticism. E. Heidrich
("Diirer und die Reformation," 1909) makes Diirer die a Lutheran.
For his final profession of Catholicism see more particularly Ant.
Weber, "Albrecht Diirer," 3rd ed., 1903. Cp. "Hochland," 3, 2, 1906,
p. 206 ff. W. Kohler remarks' in the " Theol. Jahresbericht," 1908,
vol. xxviii., p. 244 : " Diirer was more a follower of Erasmus than a
Lutheran." See also G. Stuhlfauth in the " Deutsch-evangel. Blatter,
1907, p. 835 ff., and " Histor. Jahrb.," 1910, p. 456 ff.

2 April or May, 1528, " Brief wechsel," 6, p. 255.

3 Enders, ibid., p. 257, n. 3.

44 THE APOSTASY

views with regard to the cardinal question of faith and religious
belief."1 It is not impossible that Diirer, like Pirkheimer, began
to have doubts, and withdrew at last the open support he had
previously given the Reformers.

The spiritual experiences of Pirkheimer and Durcr help
to bring before our eyes typical instances of the false paths
followed by many of their contemporaries and the struggles
through which they went.

1 Hagelstange, in " Hochland," 1906, p. 314.

CHAPTER XII

EXCOMMUNICATION AND OUTLAWRY
SPIRITUAL BAPTISM IN THE WARTBURG

1. The Trial. The Excommunication (1520) and its
Consequences

ON June 15, 1520, Leo X promulgated the Bull condemning
forty-one Propositions of Luther's teaching, and threatening
the person of their author with excommunication.1

The Bull was the result of a formal suit instituted at
Rome on the details of which light has been thrown in
recent times by Karl Miiller, Aloys Schulte and Paul
Kalkoff.2

The trial had taken a long time, much too long consider
ing the state of things in Germany ; this delay was in reality
due to political causes, to the Pope's regard for the Elector
of Saxony, the approaching Imperial Election and to the
procrastination of the German Prince-Bishops. Even
before Dr. Johann Eck proceeded to Rome to promote the
case the negotiations had been resumed in the Papal Con
sistories at the instance of the Italian party. The first
Consistory was held on January 9, 1520.

After this, from February to the middle of March, the
matter was in the hands of a commission of theologians who

1 " Bulla contra errores M. Lutheri," Romae, 1520. Printed also
in " Bullar. Rom.," ed. Taurin., 5, p. 748 seq., and in Raynaldus,
" Annales," a. 1520, n. 51 ; and with a bitter commentary by Luther,
in " Opp. Lat. var.," 4, p. 264 seq.

2 K. Miiller, in " Zeitschr. fur Kirchengesch.," 24, 1903, p. 46 ff.
A. Schulte, in " Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven
und Bibliotheken," 6, 1903, p. 32 ff., 174 ff. P. Kalkoff, "Zu Luthers
romischem Prozess," in " Zeitschr. fur Kirchengesch.," 31, 1910, p.
372 ff ; 32, 1911, p. 1 ff. ; p. 199 ff., 408 ft, 572 ff. ; 33, 1912, p. 1 ff.
He deals fully with the part taken by the Dominicans in the Indul
gence controversy. Kalkoff's researches have since been published
apart (" Zu Luthers romischem Prozess," Gotha, 1912). A good

funeral view of the question in Pastor, " Hist, of the Popes," Engl.
rans., 7, p. 361 ff.

45

46 THE APOSTASY

were to prepare the decision. A still more select commission,
presided over by the Pope in person, then undertook the
drafting of the Bull with the forty-one Propositions of Luther
which were to be condemned. Upon the termination of their
work, in the end of April, it was submitted to the Cardinals
for their decision ; four more Consistories, held in May and
June, were, however, necessary before the matter was
finally settled. Certain differences of opinion arose as to
the question whether the forty-one Propositions were, as.
Cardinal Cajetan proposed, to be separately stigmatised as
heretical, false, scandalous, etc., or whether, as had been
done in the case of the Propositions of Wiclif and Hus at
Constance, they should be rejected in the lump without
any more definite characterisation. The latter opinion
prevailed. In the last Consistory of June 1 the Pope
decided on the publication of the Bull in this shape, and by
June 15 it was complete.

Two Cardinals, Pietro Accolti (Anconitanus) and Thomas
de Vio (Cajetanus), had all along been busy with the case.
The moving spirit was, however, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici.1
Everything points to " the matter having been treated as
a very grave one."2

Legally the case was based on the notoriety of Luther's
doctrines, he having proposed and defended them at the
Disputation of Leipzig, according to the sworn evidence of
the notaries-public. The Louvain theologians and Eck had
their share in selecting and denouncing the Theses. It would
seem that during the trial Eck submitted the official printed
minutes of the Leipzig Disputation in order to prove that
the errors were really expressed in Luther's own words.

This utilisation of the Leipzig Disputation was justified,
as it rendered nugatory Luther's appeal to a General
Council. At the Disputation in question he had denied the
authority even of (Ecumenical Assemblies.

Eck's efforts were of assistance in elucidating and pressing
on the matter. But we may gather how incorrectly the ques
tion was regarded in Rome by many, who, it is true, had little

1 P. Kalkoff, " Forschungen," etc., p. 133.

2 Schulte, " Quellen uiid Forschungen," see above p. 45, n. 2,
p. 35. The statement of K. Miiller that from the very outset there had
been a difficulty in proving Luther's writing, rests, as Schulte shows
(p. 43), merely on a misapprehended passage in one of the letters of
the Venetian Orator at Rome.

THE BULL "EXSURGE DOMINE " 47

to do with it, from the fact that, even on May 21, persons were
to be found holding the opinion that the publication of a
solemn Bull would tend to injure the cause of the Church
rather than to advance it, and that the scandal in Germany
would only become greater if it were apparent that so much
importance wras attached to Luther's errors.1

In the final sentence pronounced by the Pope, i.e. in the
Bull commencing with the words : Exsurge Domine, the
forty-one Propositions are condemned in globo as " heretical
or false, scandalous, offensive to pious ears, insulting,
ensnaring and contrary to Catholic truth."2 A series of
Luther's principal doctrines on human inability for good,
on Faith, Justification and Grace, on the Sacraments, the
Hierarchy and Purgatory were there condemned.

The Papal sentence did not proceed against Luther's
person with the severity which, in accordance with Canon
Law, his fiercest adversaries perhaps anticipated. Even the
errors mentioned as occurring in his writings are desig
nated only in the body of the Bull, and with much circum
locution. The only penalty directly imposed on him in the
meantime was the prohibition to preach. The Bull declares
that legally, as his case then stood, he might have been
excommunicated without further question, particularly on
account of his appeal to a General Council, to which the
Constitutions of Pius II and Julius II had attached the
penalties of heresy. Instead of this he is, for the present,
merely threatened with excommunication, and is placed
under the obligation, within sixty days (i.e. after a triple
summons repeated at intervals of twenty days) from the
date of the promulgation of the Bull, of making his sub
mission in writing before ecclesiastical witnesses, or of
coming to Rome under the safe conduct guaranteed by the
Bull ; he was also to commit his books to the flames ; in
default of this, by virtue of the Papal declaration, he would,
ipso facto, incur the penalties of open heresy as a notorious
heretic (i.e. be cut off from the Communion of the Faithful
by excommunication) ; every secular authority, including
the Emperor, was bound, in accordance with the law, to

1 Schulte, " Quellen und Forschungen," p. 45.

2 In Schulte (ibid., p. 49) this circumstance, on which theology
must necessarily lay great stress, is passed over. Not all Luther's
propositions were branded as " heretical."

48 THE APOSTASY

enforce these penalties. A similar sentence was pronounced
against all Luther's followers, aiders or abettors.

With respect to the terms in which the Papal Edict is
couched, the severe criticism of certain Protestant writers
might perhaps have been somewhat less scathing had they
taken into account the traditional usages of the Roman
Chancery, instead of judging them by the standard of the
legal language of to-day. Such are the harsh passages
quoted from Holy Scripture, which may appear to us
unduly irritating and violent. When all is said, moreover,
is it to be wondered at, that, after the unspeakably bitter
and insulting attacks on the Papacy and the destruction of
a portion of the German Church, strong feelings should have
found utterance in the Bull ?

The document begins with the words of the Bible : " Arise,
O God, judge thine own cause : remember thy reproaches with
which the foolish man hath reproached thee all the day" (Ps.
Ixxiii. 22). " Shew me thy face ; catch us the little foxes that
destroy the vines " (Cant. ii. 15). . . . " The boar out of the wood
hath laid it waste : and a singular wild beast hath devoured it "
(Ps. Ixxix. 14). " Lying teachers have arisen who set up schools
of perdition and bring upon themselves speedy destruction ;
their tongue is a fire full of the poison of death," etc. " They
spit out the poison of serpents, and when they see themselves
vanquished they raise calumnies." " We are determined to
resist this pestilence and this eating canker, the noxious adder
must no longer be permitted to harm the vineyard of the Lord,"
These, the strongest expressions, are taken almost word for
word from the Bible ; they might, moreover, be matched by
much stronger passages in Luther's own writings against the
authorities of the Church.

Further on the Pope addresses, in a mild, fatherly and con
ciliatory fashion, the instigator of the dreadful schism within a
Christendom hitherto united. " Mindful of the compassion of
God Who desireth not the death of a sinner, but that he be con
verted and live, we are ready to forget the injury done to us and
to the Holy See. We have decided to exercise the greatest
possible indulgence and, so far as in our power lies, to seek to
induce the sinner to enter into himself and to renounce the
errors we have enumerated, so that we may see him return to
the bosom of the Church and receive him with kindness, like the
prodigal son in the Gospel. We therefore exhort him and his
followers through the love and mercy of our God and the precious
blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the human race was
redeemed and the Church founded, and adjure them that they
cease from troubling with their deadly errors the peace, unity
and truth of the Church for which the Saviour prayed so fer-

AUTHENTICITY QUESTIONED 49

vently to His Father. They will then, if they prove obedient,
find us full of fatherly love and be received with open arms."

Luther was aware that, after the promulgation of the
Bull, he could place no further hope in the Emperor Charles
V, whose devotion to the Church was well known, but he
was sure of the protection of his Elector.1 It was clear to
Luther that, without the support of the Elector, the execu
tion of the Bull by the secular power after the excommuni
cation had come into force would mean his death.

Before publicly burning his boats he launched among the
people his booklet "Von den ncwen Eckischenn Bullen und
Liigen,"2 pretending that the Bull (which he knew to be
genuine) was merely a fabrication of Dr. Eck's. Here, with
a bold front, he repeated that his doctrine had not yet been
condemned, nor the controversy decided, and that all the
hubbub was merely the result of Eck's personal hatred.

This was shortly after followed by the pamphlet " Against
the Bull of 'End-Christ,'"3 issued by his indefatigable
press. The Latin version of the little work, brimming over
with hatred, was ready by the end of October, 1520.

Although, in order to keep up the pretence of doubting the
authenticity of the Bull, he here deals with it hypothetically,
he nevertheless implores the Pope and his Cardinals, should they
really have issued it, to reflect, otherwise he would be forced
to curse their abode as the dwelling-place of Antichrist. In
the same strain he proceeds : " Where art thou, good Emperor,
and you, Christian Kings and Princes ? You took an oath of
allegiance to Christ in baptism and yet you endure these hellish
voices of Antichrist."4

In the German version, from motives of policy, the tone is
rather milder. Luther shrank from instigating the German
princes too openly to violent measures. The appeal to them
and to the Emperor is there omitted. The call to the people,
however, rings loud and enthusiastic : " Would it be a wonder
if the Princes, the Nobility and the laity were to knock the
Pope, the Bishops, parsons and monks on the head and drive
them out of the land ? " For the action of Rome is heretical,
the Pope, the Bishops, the parsons and the monks were bringing
the laity about their ears by this " blasphemous, insulting Bull."
Then he suddenly pulls himself up, but to very little purpose,
and adds : "not that I wish to incite the laity against the clergy,

1 Kalkoff, " Forschungen," p. 543 ff.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 576 ff ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 17 ff.

3 Ibid., p. 595 ff. [38 f.]. " Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 132 seq.

4 Ibid., p. 603 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 5. p. 142.

II. — E

50 THE APOSTASY

but rather that we should pray to God that He may turn aside
His wrath from them, and set them free from the evil spirit that
has possessed them."1

In the German version, however, he refers more distinctly
to the existence of " the Bulls against Dr. Luther which are said
to have recently come from Rome."2 He here declares, as to
the theological question involved, that "as a matter of fact the
whole Christian Church cannot err," viz. " all Christians through
out the whole world," but that the Pope is guilty of the most
devilish presumption in setting up his own opinion, as though it
were as good as that of the whole Church. The work is thus
levelled at the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, which had always been
accepted in the Church in cases where the Pope decides on matters
of doctrine as supreme judge ; this doctrine had ever been taken
for granted, and stood in the forefront in all the measures pre
viously taken 'by the Church against the attacks of heretics.
Even in those days the Church had always based her action
against separatists on her infallibility as a teacher.

In view of the existing political conditions there was but
little hope that it would be possible for the General Council,
to which Luther had appealed, to meet at an early date.
At the time of Luther's uprising, moreover, the state of
feeling, both in ecclesiastical circles and among the laity,
gave little promise of good results even in the event of the
calling together of a great Council. The stormy so-called
Reforming Councils of the fifteenth century had shown the
dangers of the prevailing spirit of independence, and the
feeling among the ecclesiastical authorities was, from
motives of caution, averse to the holding of Councils.
Luther, on his part, was well aware how futile was his appeal
to a General Council.

That his request was useless and only intended to gain
time was apparent to all who had any discernment, when,
on November 17, 1520, he again appealed to a " free Chris
tian Council." Luther's appeal was published at the same
time as his Latin work " Against the Bull of End-Christ."
Its character is plain from its invitation to the people " to
oppose the mad action of the Pope." It was a method of
agitation calculated to call forth the applause of those who
had become accustomed to the ecclesiastical radicalism of
the so-called reforming Councils.

Luther gave practical effect to his view regarding the
1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 242, p. 46. 2 Ibid., p. 41.

THE BURNING OF THE BULL 51

value to be set on solemn Papal decrees on faith by his
famous act before the Elster Gate of Wittenberg.

On December 10 he there proceeded to burn the Bull of
Excommunication amid the acclamations of his followers
amongst the students, whom he had invited to the spectacle
by a public notice exhibited at the University. Not the Bull
only was committed to the flames, but, according to the
programme, also " books of the Papal Constitutions and of
scholastic theology." Besides the Bull the following were
cast into the great fire : the Dccretum of Gratian, the
Decretals with the " Liber Sextus," the Clementines
and the Extravagants, also the Summa Angelica of Angelus
de Clavasio, the work then most in use on the Sacrament
of Penance, books by Eck, particularly that entitled
" Chrysopassus," some by Emser, and others, too, offered by
the zeal of private individuals. The recently discovered
account by Johann Agricola says, that the works of Thomas
and Scotus would also have been consigned to the flames
but that no one was willing to deprive himself of them for
this purpose. According to this writer, whose information
is fuller than that of the authority generally quoted, Luther,
while in the act of burning the Bull, pronounced the words :
" Because thou hast destroyed the truth of the Lord, the
Lord consume thce in this fire " (cp. Josue vii. 25). *

A few weeks later Luther related, not without pride, how
the students " in the Carnival days made the Pope figure in
the show [the students being dressed up to play the part],
seated on a car with great pomp ; it was really too droll. At
the stream in the market-place they allowed him to escape
with his Cardinals, bishops and attendants ; he was then

^ For the accounts of the burning, see M. Perlbach and J. Luther,
" Em neuer Bericht iiber Luthers Verbrennung der Bannbulle " (" SB.
der preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaft.," and also apart), Berlin, 1907, and
Kawerau, in " Theol. Studien," 1908, p. 587. Luther's words, quoted
in the new account, run as follows : " Quia tu conturbasti ve.rita.tem Dei,
conturbat et te hodie in ignem istum (instead of ' igni isto '). Amen " ;
whereupon all those present answered, " Amen" The form given
before this ran : " Quia tu conturbasti sanctum Dei, ideoque te conturbet
ignis ceternus." Were this correct, " sanctum Dei " would refer to
Christ as the " Holy One of God," according to the biblical expres
sion, but we should scarcely be justified in taking it to mean Luther
himself, as some Catholics have done, as though he had arrogated to
himself this title. With regard to the books burnt, see also Luther's
letter to Spalatin, on December 10, 1520, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 18.
On Thomas and Scotus see the source quoted above.

52 THE APOSTASY

chased through various parts of the city : everything was
well and grandly planned ; for the enemy of Christ is
deserving of such mockery, since he himself mocks at the
greatest Princes and even' Christ Himself. The verses which
describe the whole scene are now being printed." This was
how Luther wrote to Spalatin, who was then with the
Elector at the Diet of Worms. l

Evil things were in store for Luther at Worms. It seemed
that his summons thither was unavoidable, since Pope
Leo X, in the new Bull, " Decet Romamim Pontificem," of
January 3, 1521, had declared that Luther, owing to his
persistent contumacy, had, ipso facto, incurred excom
munication and become liable to the penalties already
decreed by law against heretics.

Certain historians have extolled the great calmness
which Luther preserved even during the stormy days when
the excommunication arrived ; they will have it that his
composure of mind never deserted him. He himself, how
ever, speaks otherwise.

According to his own statements contained in the letters
which give so speaking a testimony to the state of his mind,
he frequently did not know what he was doing, and blindly
obeyed the impulse which drove him onward. Luther's be
haviour at that time was the very reverse of the clear-sighted,
enlightened and self-controlled conduct of holy and virtuous
Churchmen when in the midst of storm and stress. He himself
confessed with regard to his polemics : " Yes, indeed, I feel that
I am not master of myself (compos mei non sum). I am carried
away and know not by what spirit. I wish evil to none, but I
am not on my guard against Satan, and it is to this that the fury
of my enemies is due."2

To explain this inward turmoil we must take into account,
not only the excommunication, but also the unexampled over-
exertion which at that time taxed his mental and physical powers.
He was necessarily in a state of the utmost nervous tension.
" Works of the most varied kind," he says, in the letter quoted,
" carry my thoughts in all directions. I have to speak publicly
no less than twice daily. The revision of the Commentary on
the Psalms engages my attention. At the same time I am pre
paring sermons for the press, I am also writing against my
enemies, opposing the Bull in Latin and in German and working

1 On February 17, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 87. For the printed
verses, Enders, like Kostlin, refers to Selneccer, " Vita Lutheri,"
Witteb., 1687, p. 133.

2 To Conrad Pellican, at the end of February, 1521, " Brief wech-
ael," 3, p. 93.

FEVERISH ACTIVITY 53

at my defence. Besides this I write letters to my friends. I am
also obliged to entertain my ordinary visitors at home." At this
time Luther not unfrequently kept three printing-presses at
work at once.

Never before had Gutenberg's art been of such service to
any public cause ; all Germany was flooded with Luther's
writings with bewildering rapidity.

He commenced printing the booklet " To the Christian
Nobility " before it was fully written, and its plan he
settled whilst a second pamphlet of his against Prierias was
passing through the press. This, in turn, was accompanied
by a booklet against the Franciscan Alveld. Between the
publication of the three so-called great " Reformation
works," which, with the new editions immediately called for,
followed each other in rapid succession, came the printing
of a sermon on the New Testament and the tracts already
mentioned : " Von den newen Eckischenn Bullen," and
" Against the Bull of Antichrist " (in Latin) ; then followed
the publication of his "Warumb des Bapsts und seyner
Jungern Biichcr vorbrant seyn," then the "Defence of all
the Propositions " condemned in the Bull (in Latin), then
the controversial pamphlets : " An den Bock zu Leyptzck "
(Hieronymus Emser), and " Auff des Bocks zu Leypczick
Antwort " At the same time, however, he published some
religious works of a practical nature, namely the " Tessara-
dekas," a book of consolation for suffering and perturbed
Christians, and the commencement of his exposition of the
Magnificat. The latter he dedicated to Johann Friedrich,
the Elector's nephew ; it is not only improving in tone, but
was also of practical use in increasing the esteem in which
he was held at Court.

Such incredible overtaxing of his strength naturally
resulted in a condition of serious mental strain, at the very
time, too, when Luther had to weigh in his mind profound
and momentous questions, vital problems, the treatment of
which called for the most utmost recollection and com
posure.

" While I am preaching to others, I myself am a castaway,"
so he once writes in biblical terms in a letter to Staupitz,1 "so
much does intercourse with men carry me away." Pope Leo X,

On February 9, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 83.

54 THE APOSTASY

whose personal qualities he had shortly before been praising,
becomes in this letter a wolf, who in his Bull has condemned all
that Staupitz had taught regarding God's mercy. Christ Him
self is condemned by the Pope, damned and blasphemed. Staupitz
might well exhort him to humility, for, alas, he knew he was
proud, but Staupitz, on his part, was too humble, otherwise he
would not retreat before the Pope. " Men may accuse me of
every vice, of pride, adultery, murder and even of Anti-popery,
but may I never be guilty of a godless silence in the presence of
those who are crucifying our Lord afresh. . . . Therefore at
least suffer me to go on and be carried away even though you
may not yourself agree to follow (sine me ire et rapi)." It is
here that he appeals to the assistance of Hutten and his party,
and to the intervention of the Elector Frederick in the words
already quoted.1

And yet he confesses to a certain nervousness : "At first I
trembled and I prayed while burning the Papal books and the
Bull. But now I am more rejoiced at this than at any previous
act of my life ; they [the Romanists] are a worse pestilence than
I had thought." This he writes to his same fatherly friend,
Staupitz.2

His perturbation, which had become to him almost a life-
element, served to dispel his fears and his doubts : " I am
battling with the floods and am carried away by them
(" fluctibus his raptor et volror"). "The noise [of strife]
rages mightily. Both sides are putting their heart into it."3
Catholics discern with grief in this uncanny joy a sad
attempt on his part to find encouragement in the pre
posterous notion he fostered of the " devilishness " of the
Papacy. They will also perceive in his outbursts of rage, and
in the challenges to violence in which he indulges in un
guarded moments, the effect of the excommunication
working on a mind already stirred to its innermost depths.
When we hear him declare in a popular pamphlet, after the
arrival of the Papal Bull, that it would not be surprising
were the Princes, the nobility and laity to hit the Pope, the
bishops, priests and monks over the head and drive them
out of the land,4 we find that such language agrees only too
well with his furious words in his tract written in 1520

1 He praises the Prince, saying that he walks " prudenter, fideliter,"
and " constanter." Cp. above p. 8.

2 January 14, 1521, " Brief weehsel," 3, p. 70

3 Both sentences, ibid.

4 Above, p. 49. Epitome of Prierias with Preface and Postscript
(Latin). " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 347. The commencement of the
passage is quoted above, p. 13.

ON WASHING HANDS IN BLOOD 55

against Prierias, where he compares the Pope and his
followers to a band of cut-throats.

If murderers are punished with the sword, why then should we
not proceed with still greater severity against those " teachers
of perdition " who are determined not to repent ? " Why do we
not attack them with every weapon that comes to hand and wash
our hands in their blood, if we thereby save ourselves and ours
from the most dangerous of flames ? How happy are those
Christians who are not obliged like us, the most miserable of
men, to live under such an Antichrist." Recognising the ominous
character of the passage " Cur non . . . manus nostras in
sanguine istonmi lavamus," etc., later Lutherans added certain
words which appear first in the Jena edition (German translation)
in 1555 : " But God Who says (Deut. xxxii. 35, Rom. xii. 19)
' Vengeance is mine ' will find out these His enemies in good
time, who are not worthy of temporal punishment, but whose
punishment must be eternal in the abyss of hell." These words,
which are not found in the original edition of 1520, are given in
Walch's edition of Luther, vol. xviii., p. 245. The argument
in exoneration of Luther, based upon them by a recent Lutheran,
thus falls to the ground. The addition will be sought for in vain
in the Weimar edition (6, p. 347 f.), and in that of Erlangen
(" Opp. Lat. var." 2, p. 107). Paulus has proved that the falsifica
tion of the text was the work of Nicholas Amsdorf, who was
responsible for the Jena edition, though in the Preface he protests
that his edition of Luther's works is free from all correction or
addition.1

In view of the inflammatory language which he hurled among
the crowd, assurances of an entirely different character, which,
when it suited his purpose, he occasionally made for the benefit
of the Court, really deserve less consideration. In these he is
desirous of disclaiming beforehand the responsibility for any
precipitate and dangerous measures taken by men like Hutten,
and such as Spalatin in his anxiety fancied he foresaw. What
Luther wrote on January 16, 1521, was addressed to him and
intended for the Elector ; 2 hero he says that the war for the
Gospel ought not to be waged by violence and manslaughter,
because Antichrist is to be destroyed by " the Word " alone.
On this occasion he expresses the wish that God would restrain
the fury of those men who threatened to injure His good cause
and who might bring about a general rising against the clergy
such as had taken place in Bohemia (i.e. the Husite insurrection).3

1 On the falsification of Luther's works in the early editions, see
G. Arnold, " Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie," 2, 1727,

?. 419 ff. ; Paulus, " Protestantismus und Toleranz im 16. Jahrh.,"
911, p. 17.

2 To Spalatin at Worms, January 16, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 73.

3 In the same month he wrote to Hutten to the same effect : " Nol-
lem vi et ccede pro evangelio certari." The letter, however, did not
reach its destination. Enders, 3, p. 74, n. 8.

56 THE APOSTASY

He foresees, however, that the Romanists will bring this mis
fortune upon themselves through their obstinate resistance to
" the Word." As yet they were holding back (so he wrote when
the meeting at Worms had commenced) ; but, should their fury
burst forth, then, it was generally apprehended that it would
lead to a regular Bohemian revolt in^Germany, in which the
clergy would suffer ; he himself, however, was certainly not to
blame, as he had advised the nobility to proceed against the
Romanists with " edicts " and not with the sword.1

The menacing attitude of the Knights seemed to Luther
sufficiently favourable to his cause without their actually
declaring war. We shall return later to Luther's ideas
regarding the use of force in support of the Evangel (vol. iii.
xv. 3).

As for the above-mentioned references to Antichrist, we
can only assume that he had gradually persuaded himself
that the Pope really was the Antichrist of the Bible. Accord
ing to his opinion the Antichrist of prophecy was not so
much a definite person as the Papacy as a whole, at least in
its then degenerate form. So thoroughly did he imbue his
mind with those biblical images which appealed to him, and
so vivid were the pictures conjured up by his imagination
of the wickedness of his foes, that we cannot be surprised if
the idea he had already given expression to, viz. that the
Pope was Antichrist,2 took more and more possession of him.
Owing to the pseudo-mysticism, under the banner of which
he carried on his war against the Church of Rome, he was
the more prone to indulge in such a view. His lamentations
over Babylon and Antichrist, and his intimate persuasion
that he had unmasked Antichrist and that therefore the
second coming of Christ was imminent (see below), un
doubtedly rested on a morbid, pseudo-mystic foundation.

At about that time he set forth his ideas regarding Anti
christ in learned theological form, for the benefit of readers

1 Letter to Spalatin in Worms, February 27, 1521, " Brief wechsel,"
3, p. 90 : The wrath of the Papists was being stayed by a Divine
decree.

2 See volume i., p. 359. H. Preuss, "Die Vorstellungen vom Anti
christ im Mittelalter," 1909, gives instances of writers who anticipated
Luther in seeing Antichrist in the Pope. He looks upon Luther's
controversial writings on the subject of Antichrist as justified. " All
Lutheran Christendom at the Reformation period," according to him,
shared " its master's " views and expectation of the approaching end
of the world (p. 196) ; he thinks it quite in order that the article re
garding Antichrist " should have been incorporated in the Lutheran
Confession of Faith " (p. 181).

ON THE MONK-CALF 57

of every nation, in a Latin exposition of the prophecies of
Daniel, in which, according to him, the Papacy is predicted
as Antichrist and described in minutest detail. This strange
commentary is found in his reply to the Italian theologian
Ambrose Catharinus: " Ad librum Catharini respomio."1
Cultured foreign readers can scarcely have gained from
these pages a very favourable impression of the imaginative
German monk's method of biblical exposition. This
curious tract followed too quickly upon that to which it was
a reply. Luther received a copy of the book against him by
Catharinus on March 6 or 7, yet, in order to forestall the
effect of the work on the Diet of Worms, in the course of the
same month he composed the lengthy reply which is all
steeped in mystical fanaticism. From that time forward the
crazy fiction that the Pope was Antichrist gained more and
more hold of him, so that even towards the end of his life,
as we shall see, he again set about decking it out with new
and more forceful proofs from Holy Scripture.

Luther's frame of mind again found expression in a tract
which he launched among the people not long after, viz.
the " Deuttung des Munchkalbes."2 Here he actually
seeks to show in all seriousness that the horrors of the
Papacy, and particularly of the religious state, had been
pointed out by heaven through the birth of a misshapen
calf, an occurrence which at that time was attracting notice.
Passages from the Bible, and likewise Apocalyptic dreams,
were pressed in to serve the author of this lamentable
literary production.

Yet, in spite of all these repulsive exaggerations with
which his writings were crammed, nay, on account of these
images of a heated imagination, the attack upon the old
Church called forth by Luther served its purpose with all
too many. Borne on the wings of a hatred inspired by a
long-repressed grudge, his pamphlets were disseminated
with lightning speed by discontented Catholics. Language
of appalling coarseness, borrowed from the lips of the
lowest of the populace, seemed to carry everything before it,
and the greater the angry passion it displayed the greater
was its success. What one man's words can achieve under
favourable circumstances was never, anywhere in the history

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 698 ff.

2 Ibid., 11, p. 357-373 ; Erl. ed., 29, p. 1-16.

58 THE APOSTASY

of the world, so clearly exemplified as in Germany in those
momentous days. Luther's enthusiastic supporters read
his writings aloud and explained them to the people in the
squares and market-places, and the stream of eloquence
falling on ready ears proved far more effective than the
warnings of the clergy, who in many places were regarded
writh suspicion or animosity.

Spalatin, in the meantime, was engaged in trying to
prevent Luther from incurring the only too well-founded
reproach of openly inciting people to revolt against the
authority of the Empire ; with such a charge against him
it would have been difficult for the Elector of Saxony to
protect him.

As, during Spalatin's stay at Worms, the burning of
Luther's books had already begun in various places, owing
to the putting in force of the Bull " Exsurge Domine" the
courtier was at pains to advise his impetuous friend as to
what he should do respecting such measures. He counselled
Luther to compose a pamphlet addressed to penitents,
dealing with the forbidden books, the matter being a
practical one owing to the likelihood of people confessing
in the tribunal of penance that they possessed works of
Luther. It was no easy task to deal with this question of
the duty of confession. Luther, however, felt himself
supported by the attitude assumed by the Elector, at whose
command, so he says, he had first published his new booklet
against the Bull, " Grund und Ursach aller Artickel "
(Ground and Reason of all the [condemned] Articles),
in German and Latin.1

He therefore determined to carry his war into the
confessional and, by means of a printed work, to decide, in
his own favour, the pressing, practical question regarding
his books. The flames were blazing in the bishoprics of
Merseburg and Meissen, and to them were consigned such
of Luther's writings as had been given up by Catholics or
halting disciples. Easter, too, was drawing near with the
yearly confession. Many a conscience might be stirred up
by the exhortations of pious confessors and be aroused to
renewed loyalty to the Church. Luther's pamphlet, entitled

1 To Staupitz in Salzburg, February 9, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3,
p. 85 : " Princcps noster, cuius iussu assertiones istas utraque lingua
edo."

ON FORBIDDEN BOOKS 59

" Unterricht dcr Beychtkindcr ubir die vorpottcn
Biichcr " (An Instruction for Penitents concerning the
prohibited books), which appeared in the earlier part of
February, 1521, affords us an insight into the strategies
adopted by Luthcranism at its inception.

The language of this tract is, for a writer like Luther, ex
tremely moderate and circumspect, for its object was to enlist
in his cause the most secret and intimate of all acts, that of the
penitent in confession ; its apparent reticence made it all the
more seductive. In his new guise of an instructor of consciences,
Luther here seems fully to recognise the Sacrament of Confession.
He has no wish, so he protests, to introduce " strife, disputation
and dissension into the holy Sacrament of Confession."1

The penitent, who is in the habit of reading his works, he tells
to beg his confessor in " humble words," should he question him,
not to trouble him concerning Luther's books. He is to say to
his confessor : " Give me the Absolution to which I have a right,
and, after that, wrangle about Luther, the Pope and whomsoever
else you please." He encourages his readers to make such a
request by explaining that these books, and likewise Luther's
guilt, have not yet been duly examined, that many were in doubt
about the Bull, that Popes had often changed their minds upon
similar matters and contradicted themselves, and that a con
fessor would therefore be acting tyrannically were he to demand
that the books should be given up ; this was, however, the un
fair treatment to which he had ever been subjected. There was
only one thing wanting, namely, that Luther should have repeated
what he had shortly before declared, that, for the sake of peace,
he would " be quite happy to see his books destroyed," if only
people were permitted to keep and read the Bible.2

He continues : Since it might happen that some would be
conscientiously unable to part with his writings, owing to know
ledge or suspicion of the truth, such people should quietly waive
their claim to Absolution should it be withheld. They were
nevertheless to " rejoice and feel assured that they had really
been absolved in the sight of Cod and approach the Sacrament
without any shrinking." Those who were more courageous,
however, and had a " strong conscience " were to say plainly to
the " taskmaster " (the confessor) : " You have no right to
force me against my conscience, as you yourself know, or
ought to know, Romans xiv." " Confessors are not to meddle
with the judgment of God, to whom alone are reserved the secrets
of the heart." If, however, communion be refused, then all were
first to " ask for it humbly," " and if that was of no avail, then
they were to let Sacrament, altar, parson and Church go " ; for

1 Reprinted " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 284 ff. ; Erl. ed., 242,
p. 206 ff.

2 " Widder die Bullen des Endchrists," "Werke," Weim. ed., (3,
p. 616 ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 40.

60 THE APOSTASY

" contrary to God's Word and your conscience no commandment
can be made, or hold good if made, as they themselves all teach."

Such a view of the functions of a confessor and of his duty as
a judge appointed by authority had certainly never been taught
in the Church, but was entirely novel and unheard of, however
much it might flatter the ears of the timid, and of those who
wavered or were actually estranged from the Church. Most of
his readers were unaware how shamelessly their adviser was
contradicting himself, and how this apparently well-meaning
instructor of consciences in the confessional was the very man
'who in previous polemical tracts had denied that there was any
difference between priests and laymen.1 Towards the close of
this Instruction, however, the author reappears in his true
colours, and whereas, at the commencement when introducing
himself, he had spoken of confession as a holy Sacrament, at the
end he describes it as an unjust invention of the priesthood, and,
indeed, in his eyes, it was really a mere " human institution."
Towards the conclusion, where he relapses into his wonted
threatening and abusive language, he " begs all prelates and
confessors " not to torture consciences in the confessional lest
the people should begin to question " whence their authority and
the practice of private confession came " ; as if his very words
did not convey to the reader an invitation to do so. " The
result," he prudently reminds them, " might be a revolt in which
they [the prelates] might be worsted. For though confession is a
most wholesome thing, everyone knows how apt some are to
take offence." He points out how in his case the authorities had
driven him further and further, well-intentioned though he was :
" How many things would never have happened had the Pope
and his myrmidons not treated me with violence and deceit."2

The Easter confession that year might prove decisive to thou
sands. The little earnestness shown by too many in the practice
of their religion, the laxity of the German clergy, even the ap
parent insignificance of the question of retaining or perusing
certain books, all this was in his favour. In the above tract he
set before the devout souls who were " tyrannised " by their
confessors the example of Christ and His Saints, who all had
suffered persecution ; " we must ask God to make us worthy of
suffering for the sake of His Word." The more imaginative, he
likewise warned of the approaching end of the world. " Re
member that it was foretold that in the days of ' End-Christ ' no
one will be allowed to preach, and that all will be looked upon as
outcasts who speak or listen to the Word of God." Those who
hesitated and were scrupulous about keeping Luther's writings,
seeing they had been prohibited by law and episcopal decrees as
" blasphemous," he sought to reassure by declaring that his
books were nothing of the kind, for in them he had attacked the
person neither of the Pope nor of any prelate, but had merely

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 395, where this contradiction is pointed
out.

8 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 297 f. ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 212.

THE DIET OF WORMS 61

blamed vices, and that if they were to be described as blasphemous,
then the same " must be said of the Gospel and the whole of
Holy Scripture."1

Thus, in this ingenious work, each one found something
suited to his disposition and his scruples and calculated to
lead him astray. The culmination is, however, in the words
already adduced : Nothing against conscience, nothing
against the Word of God ! The " enslaved conscience " and
the " commanding Word of God," these are the catchwords
of which Luther henceforth makes use so frequently and to
such purpose. He employs these terms as a cloak to conceal
the complete emancipation of the mind from every duty
towards a rule of faith and ecclesiastical authority which he
really advocates. The " commanding Word of God," on
his lips, means the right of independent, private interpreta
tion of the sacred Books, though he reserves to himself the
first place in determining their sense.

Conscience and the Word of God, words with which
Luther had familiarised the masses from the commencement
of his apostasy, wrere also to be his cry at the Diet of Worms
in 1521, when he stood before the supreme spiritual and
temporal authorities there assembled around the Emperor.
Uttered there before Church and Empire, this cry was to
re-echo mightily and to bring multitudes to his standard.

2. The Diet of Worms, 1521 ; Luther's Attitude
The Diet had been assembled at Worms around the
Emperor since January 27, 1521.

Charles V showed himself in religious questions a staunch
supporter of the Catholic Church, to which indeed he was
most devotedly attached. He was not, however, always well-
advised, and the multitudinous cares of his empire fre
quently blinded him to the real needs of the Church, or else
made it impossible for him to act as he wrould have wished.
On February 13, 1521, in the presence of the Princes and
the States-General of the Empire, Hieronymus Aleander,
the Papal Legate accredited to the Diet, delivered the speech,
which has since become historic, on the duty of the Empire
to take action against Luther as a notorious, obstinate
heretic, definitively condemned by the supreme Papal Court.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 297 ; Erl. ed., 24, p. 212.

62 THE APOSTASY

He did not fail to point out, that " it was a fact of common
knowledge that Luther was inciting the people to rebellion
and that, like the heretics of Bohemia, he was destroying all
law and order in the name and semblance of the Gospel."1

On March 6 Luther was summoned to appear before the
Diet at Worms, the Emperor furnishing him with an escort
and guaranteeing his safe return. Encouraged by the latter
promise, secure in the favour of his own sovereign, and
assured of the support of the Knights, he decided to comply
with the summons.

The thought of bearing testimony to his newly discovered
Evangel before the whole country and enjoying the oppor
tunity, by his appearance in so public a place, of rousing
others to enthusiasm for the work he had undertaken urged
him on. Severe bodily ailments from which he was suffering
at that time did not deter him. His illness, he declared, was
merely a trick of " the devil to hinder him " ; on his part he
would do all he could to " affright and defy him." " Christ
lives, and we shall enter Worms in spite of all the gates of
hell and the powers of the air."2 To Spalatin we owe an
echo from one of Luther's letters at that time : " He was
determined to go to Worms though there should be as many
devils there as there were tiles on the roofs."3

The journey to Worms resembled a sort of triumphal
progress, owing to the festive reception everywhere pre
pared for him by his friends, and in particular by the
Humanists.

His arrival at Erfurt was celebrated beforehand by
Eobanus Hessus in a flattering poem. On April 6 the
Rector of the University, Crotus Rubcanus, with forty
professors and a great crowd of people, went out to meet him
when he was still three leagues from the city. The address
delivered by Rubcanus at the meeting expressed gratitude
for the " Divine apparition " which was vouchsafed to them
in the coming of the " hero of the Evangel."4

1 Janssen -Pastor, " Gesch. des deutschen Volkes," 218, p. 165.
" Hist, of the German People," Engl. Trans., 3, p. 178.

2 Letter to Spalatin, April 14, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 121.
" Tischreden," " Werke," Erl. ed., 62, p. 75.

3 Spalatin's " Annals," ed. Cyprian, 1718, p. 38. Cp. Enders,
" Briefwechsel," 3, p. 122, n. 5 ; " Tischreden," " Werke," Erl. ed.,
62, p. 75.

4 Janssen-Pastor, 218, p. 174, Engl. Trans., 3, 189.

JOURNEY TO WORMS 63

On the following day Luther preached in the Church of the
Augustinians. He spoke of good works : " One erects
churches, another makes a pilgrimage to St. James of
Compostella or to St. Peter's, a third fasts and prays, wrears
a cowl or goes barefoot . . . such works are of no avail and
must be done awray with. Mark these words : All our works
are worthless. I am your justification, says Christ our Lord,
I have destroyed the sins with which you are loaded ; there
fore believe only that it is I alone who have done this and
you will be justified." Luther fired invectives against the
intolerable yoke of the Papacy and against the clergy who
" slaughtered the sheep instead of leading them to pasture."
Himself he represents as persecuted by the would-be
righteous, the Pope and his Bull, on account of his teaching
which was directed against the false self-righteousness
arising from works.1

On the occasion of this sermon Luther, as his followers
asserted, performed his first miracle, quelling a disturbance
excited by the devil during the sermon in the overcrowded
church ; the interruption ceased when Luther had exorcised
the fiend.2

At Erfurt the enthusiasm for his cause became so great
that on the day after his departure riots broke out, the so-
called " Pfaffensturm " or priest-riot, which will be con
sidered below (xiv. 5), together with other circumstances
attending the introduction of the new Evangel at Erfurt.
Luther was at the time silent concerning the occurrence.3
Not long after his arrival at the Wartburg, referring to
similar scenes of violence, he says, in a letter to Melanchthon :
" The priests and monks raged against me like madmen
when I was free ; but now that I am a captive they are
afraid and have restrained their insane action. They cannot
endure the common people who now have them under their
heel. Behold the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, Who is
working for us while we are silent, suffer and pray."4 Never
theless, when all was over, he protested against the acts of
violence committed at Erfurt in a letter to Spalatin, which
was found in that courtier's library.5

" Werke," Erl. ed., 162, p. 249 ff.

Janssen-Pastor, 218, p. 175, Engl. Trans., 3, 190.

Ibid., Enders, p. 156, n. 4.

Previous to May 12, 1521, " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 147.

About the middle of May, 1521, ibid., p. 158.

64 THE APOSTASY

On the journey through Thuringia he met the Prior of the
Rheinhardsbrunn monastery, whom he exhorted as follows :
" Say an Our Father for our Lord Christ that His Father
may be gracious to Him. If He upholds His cause, then
mine also is assured."1 Such was the strange manner in
which he expressed his real inward feelings. Those who
expected him to recant at Worms did not know their
man.

Reaching Worms on April 16 he was, on the following day,
submitted to the first interrogation. To the question
whether he was the author of the books mentioned, he
replied in the affirmative, and when exhorted to retract his
errors he begged for " a respite and time for consideration "
that, as he says in his own notes at the time, " as I have to
give a verbal answer I may not through want of caution
say too much, or too little, to repent of it later," especially
as it was a matter concerning " the highest good in heaven
or on earth, the Holy Word of God and the faith." The
respite granted was only for one day. On April IS he
declared boldly, at his second interrogation, that any
retractation of the books he had written against the Pope
was impossible for him, since he would thereby be strength
ening his tyranny and unchristian spirit ; the consciences of
Christians were held captive in the most deplorable fashion
by the Papal laws and the doctrines of men ; even the
property of the German nation was swallowed up by the
rapacity of the Romans. He would repeat what Christ had
said before the High Priest and his servants : " If I have
spoken evil, give testimony of the evil " ; if the Lord was
willing to listen to the testimony of a servant, " how much
more must I, the lowest erring creature, wait and see whether
any man brings forward testimony adverse to my teaching."
He asks, therefore, to be convinced of error and confuted by
the Bible. " I shall be most ready if I am shown to be wrong
to retract every error." He owed it to Germany, his native
land, to warn those in high station to beware of condemning
the truth. After recommending himself to the protection of
the Emperor against his enemies, he concluded with the
words : " I have spoken."

On returning after this to the inn through the staring
crowds, no sooner had he reached the threshold than " he
1 " Ratzebergers Geschichte," ed. Neudecker, p. 30.

AT WORMS 65

stretched out his arms and cried with a cheerful counte
nance : ' I have got through, I have got through.' J>1

The Emperor bade him begone from that very hour, but
the Estates, who were divided in their views as to the
measures to be taken, feared a " revolt in the Holy Empire,"
owing to the strength of the feeling in his favour and the
threats uttered by his armed friends, should " steps be
taken against him so hurriedly and without due trial."
Accordingly an effort was made to persuade Luther by
friendly means, through the intermediary of a commission
consisting of certain clerical and lay members of the Diet
under the Archbishop of Treves, Richard of Greiffenklau.
Their pains were, however, in vain.2

Even some of his friends besought him to commit his
cause to the Emperor and the Estates of the Empire, but
likewise to no purpose. He also refused the proposal that
lie should submit to the joint decision of the Emperor and
certain German prelates to be nominated by the Pope. All
he would promise was to hearken to a General Council, but
even this promise he qualified with a proviso which rendered
his assent illusory : " So long as no judgment contrary or
detrimental to the truth is pronounced." Who but Luther
himself was to decide what was the truth ? Cochlseus made
an offer, which under the circumstances was foredoomed to
refusal, that a public disputation should be held with the
Wittenberg monk ; to this Luther would not listen. Neither
would he give an undertaking to refrain from preaching and
writing.

His final declaration at the Diet was as follows : Seeing
that a simple and straightforward answer was demanded
of him. he would give it : " If I am not convinced by
proofs from Scripture or clear theological reasons (' ratione
evidente'), then I remain convinced by the passages which I
have quoted from Scripture, and my conscience is held
captive by the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract,

1 Janssen-Pastor, 2, p. 177, n. 3. According to the evidence of an
eye-witness, Sixtus CElhafen.

2 The report of the whole proceedings at Worms relating to Luther
has been collected in volume ii. of the German " Reichstagsakten,"
new series, 1896, ed. A. Wrede ; see particularly Sections VII. (Negotia
tions with Luther, etc.) and XI. (Correspondence, with Aleander's re
ports). Cp. H. v. Schubert, " Quellen und Forschungen iiber Luther
auf dem Reichstage zu Worms," 1899.

66 THE APOSTASY

for to go against one's conscience is neither prudent nor
ritrht." He concluded this asseveration, after a protest had
been raised and caused a tumult amongst the audience,
with the words which passed almost unheard : " God help
me, Amen ! " The tragic and solemn setting which was very
soon given to these not at all unusual concluding words, was
an uncalled-for embellishment not in agreement with the
oldest sources.1

After this, on April 2G, in accordance with the command of
the Emperor, he was obliged to quit Worms. An extension
of the safe conduct for twenty-one days was expressly
granted him, coupled, however, with the injunction not to
preach or publish anything on the way. Two days later,
while on his journey, Luther forwarded a missive to the
Emperor and another to the Estates in his own defence,
the latter being immediately printed by his friends as a
broadsheet. The print depicted Luther with a halo, and
the dove or symbol of the Holy Ghost hovering over him.

The fact that at the time the Diet was sitting a committee
of the Estates brought forward, under a new form, the so-
called " Gravamina of the German Nation " against the
Roman See, was greatly to the advantage of Luther's cause.
They consisted largely of legitimate suggestions for the
amelioration of ecclesiastical conditions and the removal
of the oppression exercised by the Curia. These were made
the subject of debate, and were exploited in Luther's interests
by those desirous of innovations. Those among the Human
ists who sided with him, and likewise the Knights of the
Empire, had taken various steps during his stay at Worms
to strengthen his position and to frighten the Estates by
hinting at violent action to be undertaken on his behalf.

Ulrich von Hutten wrote to him from the Ebernburg on
April 17 : " Keep a good heart ... I will stand by you to the
last breath if you remain true to yourself." He knows how those
assembled at the Diet gnash their teeth at him ; his fancy indeed
paints things black, but his hope in God sustains him.2 In a
second letter of April 20, Hutten speaks to him of trusting not
only in God and His Christ, but also in earthly weapons : "I

1 See below, p. 75 f.

2 In Luther's " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 124. The translation of " Equi-
clem atrocissima omnia concipio," by " I will dare even the worst," is
wrong, and the above, " My fancy paints things black," i.e. Luther's
treatment at the Diet, is better. Cp. S. Merkle, " Reformations-
geschichtl. Streitfragen," 1904, p. 56 ff.

AT WORMS 67

see that sword and bow, arrows and bolts are necessary in order
to withstand the mad rage of the devil . . . the wisdom of my
friends hinders me from a venture, because they fear lest I go too
far, otherwise I should already have prepared some kind of
surprise for these gentlemen under the walls [of Worms]. In a
short time, however, my hand will be free, and then you shall
see that I will not be wanting in the spirit which God has roused
up in me."1 In the same way as in his rhetorical language he
ascribes his own mood to the illumination of the Spirit of God, so
Hutten also sought to unearth a Divine inspiration in his friend
Franz von Sickingen ; all this was the outcome of Luther's
pseudo-mysticism, to which his friends were indebted for such
figures of speech. Regarding Sickingen, Hutten wrote to Willibald
Pirkheimer : "He has, so to speak, drunk in Luther completely ;
he has his little books read aloud at table, and I have heard him
swear that he will never forsake the cause of truth in spite of
every danger." " You may well regard these words as a Divine
Voice, so great is his constancy."2

Numerous threats of violence reached the ears of the timorous
Estates assembled at Worms. A notice was affixed to the
Rathaus in which 400 (?) sworn noblemen with 8000 (?) men
challenged the " Princes and Messrs, the Romanists." It con
cluded with the watchword of the insurgents : " Bundschuh,
Bundschuh, Bundschuh." Towards the close of the Diet several
hundred knights assembled around Worms.3

At the Diet the Elector of Saxony made no secret of his
patronage of Luther.

He it was who, on the evening before Luther's departure,
informed him in the presence of Spalatin and others, that
he would be seized on the homeward journey and con
ducted to a place of safety which would not be told him
beforehand.4

1 " Luthers Brief wechsel," 3, p. 126.

2 On May 1, 1521, Janssen- Pastor, p. 184, from Booking's edition
of Hutten's works, 2, p. 59 ff.

3 Janssen-Pastor, pp. 178, 184 f. The placard was known before,
but a new rendering is found in the Mayence " Katholik," 1902,
vol. Ixxxii., p. 96, from a letter-Codex of the sixteenth century belong
ing to the Hamburg city library, No. 469. We give J. Beyl's transla
tion : " This protest against Luther's condemnation is nailed to the
Mint [at Worms]. Whereas we, to the number of IIC simple-minded
sworn noblemen have agreed and pledged ourselves not to forsake that
just man Luther, we hereby advise the Princes, gentlemen, Romanists,
and, above all, the Bishop of Mayence, of our inveterate enmity, because
honour and righteous justice have been oppressed by them ; we do not
mention other names [of those threatened] or describe the deeds of
violence against the parsons and their supporters. Bundschuh." The
numbers given vary, and IIC is perhaps a mistake of the copyist of the
illegible placard. See " Freie Bayer. Schulzeitung," 1911, No. 6 ; but
cp. also, Kalkoff, " Reformationsgesch.," 1911, p. 361 ff.

* Spalatin's "Annales," p. 50.

68 THE APOSTASY

After having received this assurance Luther left Worms.

On the journey such was his boldness that he disregarded
the Imperial prohibition to preach, though he feared that
this violation of the conditions laid down would be taken
advantage of by his opponents, and cause him to forfeit his
safe-conduct. He himself says of the sermons which he
delivered at Hersfeld and Eisenach, on May 1 and 2, that
they would be regarded as a breach of the obligations he had
undertaken when availing himself of the safe conduct ; but
that he had been unable to consent that the Word of God
should be bound in chains. He is here playing on the words
of the Bible : " Verbum Dei non est alligatum" " This
condition, even had I undertaken it, would not have been
binding, as it would have been against God."1

After the journey had been resumed the well-known
surprise took place, and Luther was carried off to the
Wartburg on May 4.

In his lonely abode, known to only a few of his friends,
he awaited with concern the sentence of outlawry which
was to be passed upon him by the Emperor and the Estates.
The edict, in its final form of May 8, was not published
until after the safe-conduct had expired. " To-morrow the
Imperial safe conduct terminates," Luther wrote on May 11
from the Wartburg to Spalatin ; "... It grieves me that
those deluded men should call down such a misfortune upon
their own heads. How great a hatred will this inconsiderate
act of violence arouse. But only wait, the time of their
visitation is at hand."2 The proclamation of outlawry was
couched in very stern language and enacted measures of the
utmost severity, following in this the traditions of the Middle
Ages ; Luther's writings were to be burnt, and he himself
was adjudged worthy of death. Of Luther the document
says, that, " like the enemy of souls disguised in a monk's
garb," he had gathered together " heresies old and new."
The impression made by Luther on the Emperor and on
other eminent members of the Diet, was that of one pos
sessed.3

There was, from the first, no prospect of the sentence

1 To Spalatin, May 14, 1521, from the Wartburg, " Brief wechsel,"
3, p. 154. 2 Ibid., p. 153.

3 Thus Aleander, in the passage quoted below. Janssen-Pastor,
p. 184.

THE WORMS LEGEND 69

being carried into effect. The hesitation of the German
Princes of the Church to publish even the Bull of Excom
munication had shown that they were not to be trusted to
put the new measures into execution.

The thoughts of retaliation which were aflame in Luther,
i.e. his expectation of a " Divine judgment " on his adver
saries, he committed to writing in a letter which he for
warded to Franz von Sickingen on June 1, 1521, together
with a little wrork dedicated to him, " Concerning Confession,
whether the Pope has the power to decree it."1 In it he
reminds Sickingen that God had slain thirty-one Kings in
the land of Chanaan together with the inhabitants of their
cities. " It wTas ordained by God that they should light
against Israel bravely and defiantly, that they should be
destroyed and no mercy shown them. This story looks to
me like a warning to our Popes, bishops, men of learning
and other spiritual tyrants." He feared that it was God's
work that they should feel themselves secure in their pride,
" so that, in the end, they would needs perish without
mercy." Unless they altered their ways one would be
found who " would teach them, not like Luther by word and
letter, but by deeds." We cannot here go into the question
of why the revolutionary party in the Empire did not at
that time proceed to " deeds."

3. Legends

The beginning of the legends concerning the Diet of Worms
can be traced back to Luther himself. He declared, only a
year after the event, shortly after his departure from the
Wartburg, in a letter of July 15, 1522, intended for a few
friends and not for German readers : "I repaired to Worms
although I had already been apprised of the violation of
the safe-conduct by the Emperor Charles."

He there says of himself, that, in spite of his timidity, ho
nevertheless ventured " within reach of the jaws of Behemoth
[the monster mentioned in Job xl.]. And what did these terrible
giants [my adversaries] do ? During the last three years not one
has been found brave enough to come forward against me here at
Wittenberg, though assured of a safe-conduct and protection " ;
" rude and timorous at one and the same time " they would not
venture " to confront him, though single-handed," or to dispute

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 75 (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 168).

70 THE APOSTASY

with him. What would have happened had these weaklings been
forced to face the Emperor and all-powerful foes as he had done
at Worms ? This ho says to the Bohemian, Sebastian Schlick,
Count of Passun, in the letter in which he dedicates to him his
Latin work "Against Henry VIII of England."1 It is worth
noting that Luther did not insert this dedication in the German
edition, but only in the Latin one intended for Bohemia and
foreign countries where the circumstances were not so well
known.

Luther always adhered obstinately to the idea, which
ultimately passed into a standing tradition with many of
his followers, that no one had been willing to dispute with
him at Worms or elsewhere during the period of his out
lawry ; that he had, in fact, been condemned unheard ;
that his opponents had sought to vanquish him by force,
not by confronting him with proofs, and had obstinately
shut their ears to his arguments from Holy Scripture. He
finally came to persuade himself, that they were in their
hearts convinced that he was right, but out of consideration
for their temporal interests had not been willing or able to
give in.

He expressly mentions Duke George of Saxony, as an opponent
who had taken up the latter position, also the influential Arch
bishop Albrecht of Mayence, and, above all, Johann Eck. " Is
it not obdurate wickedness," he exclaims in one of his outbursts,
" to be the enemy of, and withstand, what is known and recog
nised as true ? It is a sin against the first Commandment and
greater than any other. But because it is not their invention
they look on it as nought ! Yet their own conscience accuses
them."2 In another passage, in 1528, he complains of the perse
cutors in Church and State who appealed to the edict of Worms ;
" they sought for an excuse to deceive the simple people, though
they really knew better " ; if they act .thus, it must be right,
" were wo to do the same, it would be wrong."3

Yet, even from the vainglorious so-called "Minutes of the Worms
Negotiations " (" Akten der Wormser Verhandlungen "), pub
lished immediately after at Wittenberg with Luther's assistance,4
it is clear that the case was fully argued in his presence at Worms,
and that he had every opportunity of defending himself, though,
from a legal point of view, the Bull of Excommunication having
already been promulgated, the question was no longer open to
theological discussion. In these " Minutes " the speeches he
made in his defence at Worms are quoted. Catholic contem-

1 "Werke," Weim. cd., 10, 2, p. 17511; " Opp. Lat. var.," 6,
p. 385 (" Brief vvochsel," 3, p. 433).

2 Ibid., Erl. od., 58, p. 412 f. ("Table-Talk").

3 Ibid., G3, p. 270. 4 Ibid., Weim. ed., 7, p. 825 ff.

THE WORMS LEGEND 71

poraries even reproached him with having allowed himself to be
styled therein " Luther, the man of Cod " ; his orations are
introduced with such phrases as : " Martin replied to the rude
and indiscreet questions with his usual incredible kindness and
friendliness in the following benevolent words," etc.1

In order still further to magnify the bravery he displayed at
Worms, Luther stated later on that the Pope had written to
Worms, " that no account was to be made of the safe-conduct."2
As a matter of fact, however, the Papal Nuncios at Worms had
received instructions to use every effort to prevent Luther being
tried in public, because according to Canon Law the case was
already settled ; if he refused to retract, and came provided
with a safe-conduct, nothing remained but to send him home,
and then proceed against him with the utmost severity.3 It was
for this reason, according to his despatches, that Aleander took
no part in the public sessions at which Luther was present. Only
after Luther, on the return journey, had sent back the herald
who accompanied him, and had openly infringed the conditions
of the Imperial safe-conduct, did Aleander propose " that the
Emperor should have Luther seized."'1

Luther, from the very commencement, stigmatised the Diet
of Worms as the " Sin of Wormbs, which rejected God's truth
so childishly and openly, wilfully and knowingly condemned it
unheard " ; 5 to him the members of the Diet were culpably
hardened and obdurate " Pharaohs," who thought Christ could
not see them, who, out of " utterly sinful wilfulness," were
determined " to hate and blaspheme Christ at Wormbs," and to
" kill the prophets, till God forsook them " ; ho even says : " In
me they condemned innocent blood at Wormbs ; . . . O thou
unhappy nation, who beyond all others has become the lictor
and executioner of End-Christ against God's saints and prophets."6
An esteemed Protestant biographer of Luther is, however, at
pains to point out, quite rightly, that the Diet could " not do
otherwise than condemn Luther." " By rejecting the sentence
of the highest court he placed himself outside the pale of the
law of the land. Even his very friends were unable to take
exception to this." It is, ho says, " incorrect to make out, as so
many do, that Luther's opponents were merely impious men
who obstinately withstood the revealed truth." This author
confines himself to remarking that, in his own view, it was a
mistake to have " pronounced a formal sentence " upon such
questions.7

1 Cp. Thomas Morus, " Ecsponsio ad convitia Lutheri" (" Opp."
Lovanii, 1566), p. 60. 2 Cordatus, " Tagebuch," p. 474 f.

3 " Reichstagsakten," 2, p. 825, n. 1. Balan, " Monurnenta reform.
Luth." (1883 scq.), p. 85. J. Paquier, "Jerome Al^andre," Paris, 1900,
p. 243. * Paquier, p. 242.

5 Letter to Hartmuth von Cronberg, a friend of Sickingen (middle
of March, 1522). " Werke," Erl. cd., 53, p. 125. (" Bricfwecbsel," 3,
p. 308). « Ibid., p. 120 f.

7 Kolde, " Luther," 1, p. 349.

72 THE APOSTASY

That Luther, at the Diet of Worms, bore away the palm
as the heroic defender of entire freedom of research and of
conscience, and as the champion of the modern spirit, is
a view not in accordance with a fair historical consideration
of the facts.

He himself was then, and all through life, far removed
from the idea of any freedom of conscience in the modern
sense, and would have deemed all who dared to use it
against Divine Revelation, as later opponents of religion
did, as deserving of the worst penalties of the mediaeval
code. " It is an altogether one-sided view, one, indeed,
which wilfully disregards the facts, to hail in Luther the man
of the new age, the hero of enlightenment and the creator of
the modern spirit." Such is the opinion of Adolf Ilarnack.1

At Worms, Luther spoke of himself as being bound by the
Word of God. It is true he claimed the freedom of inter
preting Holy Scripture according to his own mind, or, as he
said, according to the understanding bestowed on him by
God, and of amending all such dogmas as displeased him.

But he would on no account cease to acknowledge that a
revealed Word of God exists and claims submission from the
human mind, whereas, from the standpoint of the modern
freethinker, there is no such thing as revelation. The
liberty of interpreting revelation, which Luther proclaimed
at Worms, or, to be more exact, calmly assumed, marked,
it is true, a great stride forward in the road to the destruction
of the Church.

Luther failed to point out at Worms how such liberty, or
rather licence, agreed with the institutions established by
Christ for the preservation and perpetual preaching of His
doctrine of salvation. He was confronted by a Church, still
recognised throughout the whole public life of the nations,
which claimed as her owrn a Divine authority and com
mission to interpret the written Word of God. She was to the
Faithful the lighthouse by which souls struggling in the
waves of conflicting opinions might safely steer their course.
In submitting his own personal opinion to the solemn
judgment of an institution w^hich had stood the test of time
since the days of Christ and the Apostles, the Wittenberg
Professor had no reason to fear any affront to his dignity.
Whoever submitted to the Church accepted her authority as
1 " Lehrbuch der Dogmengesch," 34, 1910, p. 810 f.

THE WORMS LEGEND 73

supreme, but he did not thereby forfeit either his freedom
or his dignity ; he obeyed in order not to expose himself to
doubt or error ; he pledged himself to a higher, and better,
wisdom than he was able to reach by his own strength, by
the way of experience, error and uncertainty. The Church
plainly intimated to the heresiarch the error of his way,
pointing out that the freedom of interpretation which he
arrogated to himself was the destruction of all sure doctrine,
the death-blow to the truth handed down, the tearing
asunder of religious union, and the harbinger of endless
dissensions.— We here see where Luther's path diverged
from that followed by Catholics. He set up subjectivity as
a principle, and preached, together with the freedom of
interpreting Scripture, the most unfettered revolt against
all ecclesiastical authority, which alone can guarantee the
truth. The chasm which he cleft still yawns ; hence the
difference of opinion concerning the sentence pronounced
at Worms. We are not at liberty to conceal this fact from
ourselves, nor can we wonder at the conflicting judgments
passed on the position then assumed by Luther.

We may perhaps be permitted to quote a Protestant opinion
which throws some light on Luther's " championship of entire
freedom of conscience." It is that of an experienced observer of
the struggles of those days, Friedrich Paulsen : " The principle
of 1521, viz. to allow no authority on earth to dictate the terms
of faith, is anarchical ; with it no Church can exist. . . . The
starting-point and the justification of the whole Reformation
consisted in the complete rejection of all human authority in
matters of faith. ... If, however, a Church is to exist, then
the individual must subordinate himself and his belief to the
body as a whole. To do this is his duty, for religion can only
exist in a body, i.e. in a Church."1 . . . "Revolution is the
term by which the Reformation should be described . . . Luther's
work was no Reformation, no ' re-forming ' of the existing
Church by means of her own institutions, but the destruction of
the old shape, in fact, the fundamental negation of any Church
at all. He refused to admit any earthly authority in matters
of faith, and regarding morals his position was practically the
same ; he left the matter entirely to the individual conscience.
. . . Never has the possibility of the existence of any ecclesiastical
authority whatsoever been more rudely denied."2

"It is true that this is not the whole Luther," he continues.
" The same Luther who here advocates ecclesiastical ' anarchy '

1 " Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts vom Ausgang des MA. bis zur
Gegenwart," I2, 1890, p. 213 f. 2 Ibid., p. 173.

74 THE APOSTASY

at a later date was to oppose those whose conscience placed
another interpretation on God's Word than that discovered in it
by the inhabitants of Wittenberg." Paulsen quotes certain
sentences in which Luther, shortly afterwards, denounced all
deviations from his teaching : "My cause is God's cause," and
" my judgment is God's judgment," and proceeds : " Nothing
was left for the Reformers, if there was to be a Church at all, but
to set up their own authority in place of the authority of the
Popes and the Councils. Only on one tiresome point are they
at a disadvantage, anyone being free to appeal from the later
Luther to the Luther of Worms." " Just as people are inclined
to reject external authority, so they are ready to set up their
own. This- is one of the roots from which spring the desire for
freedom and the thirst for power. It was not at all Luther's way
to consider the convictions of others as of equal importance with
his own." This he clearly demonstrated in the autocratic position
which he claimed for the Wittenberg theology as soon as the
" revolutionary era of the Reformation had passed."

" The argument which Luther had employed in 1521 against
the Papists, i.e. that it was impossible to confute him from
Scripture, he found used against himself in his struggle with the
' fanatics ' who also urged that no one could prove them wrong
by Scripture. . . . For the confuting of heretics a Rule of faith
is necessary, a living one which can decide questions as they
arise. . . . One who pins his faith to what Luther did in 1521
might well say : If heretics cannot be confuted from Scripture,
this would seem to prove that God does not attach much import
ance to the confutation of heretics ; otherwise He would have
given us His Revelation in catechisms and duly balanced proposi
tions instead of in Gospels and Epistles, in Prophets and Psalms.
. . . On the one hand there can be no authority on earth in
matters of faith, and on the other there must be such an authority,
such is the antinomy which lies at the foundation of the Protestant
Church. ... A contradiction exists in the very essence of
Protestantism. On the one hand the very idea of a Church
postulates oneness of faith manifested by submission ; on the
other the conviction that if faith in the Protestant sense is to
exist at all, then each person must answer for himself ; ... it
is my faith alone which helps me, and if my faith does not agree
with the faith and doctrine of others, I cannot for that reason
abandon it. . . . The fact is, there has never been a revolution
conducted on entirely logical lines."1

That " authority in matters of faith " which Luther began to
claim for himself, did not prevent him in the ensuing years
from insisting on the right of private judgment, though all the
while he was interpreting biblical Revelation in accordance
with his own views. As time went on he became, however, much
more severe towards the heretics who diverged from his own
standpoint. But this was only when the " revolutionary era of

1 " Gesch. des gelehrtcn Uiiterrichts vom Ausgang des MA. bis zur
Gegemvart," I2, 1896, p. 212 f.

THE WORMS LEGEND 75

the Reformation," as Paulson calls it, was over and gone. So
long as it lasted he would not and could not openly refuse to
others what he claimed for himself. Even in 1525 we find him
declaring that " the authorities must not interfere with what
each one wishes to teach and to believe, whether it be the Gospel
or a lie." He is here speaking of the authorities, but his own
conduct in the matter of tolerating heretics was even then highly
inconsistent, to say nothing of toleration of Catholics.

From the above it is easy to see that the freedom which
Luther advocated at Worms cannot serve as the type of our
modern freedom of thought, research and conscience.

To return to the historical consideration of the event at
Worms, the words already mentioned, " God help me,
Amen ! " call for remark.

The celebrated exclamation put into Luther's mouth :
" Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me,
Amen ! " usually quoted as the briefest and most character
istic expression of his " exalted, knightly act " at Worms,
is a legend which has not even the credit of being incor
porated in Luther's Latin account of his speech.

He himself gives the conclusion as simply : " God help me,
Amen," a formula which has nothing emphatic about it, was
customary at the end of a discourse and is to be found elsewhere
in Luther's own writings. Its embellishment by the historic
addition was produced at Wittenberg, where it was found desirable
to render " the words rather more forcible and high-sounding."
" There is not the faintest proof that the amplification came
from anyone who actually heard the words."1 The most that
can be said is that it may have grown up elsewhere.2 The en
larged form is first found in the two editions of the discourse
printed by Griineberg at Wittenberg in 1521, one in Latin and
the other in German, which are based as to the remaining portion
on notes on the subject emanating from Luther. Karl Miiller,
the last thoroughly to examine the question, opines that Luther's
concluding phrase may very easily have been amplified without
the co-operation of Luther or of any actual witness. The pro
posal made in 1897 in Volume vii. of the Weimar edition of
Luther's works to accept as reliable Griineberg's edition which
contains the altered form of the phrase, must, according to Karl
Miiller, be regarded as "a total failure," nor does he think much

1 Thus A. Wrede, who, in his edition of the " Deutsche Reich-
stagsakten unter Karl V," 2, p. 555, has dealt anew with the question.
Cp. N. Paulus, "Kolnische Volksztg.," 1903, No. 320.

2 Thus Karl Miiller, who treats the subject exhaustively in " Luthers
Schlussworte in Worms, 1521," in " Philotcsia," dedicated to P.
Kleinert, Berlin, 1907, pp. 269, 289. Cp. the review by N. Paulus,
" Kolnische Volksztg.," 1908, No. 1000.

76 THE APOSTASY

better of the Weimar edition in its account of the Worms Acts
generally.

How little the exclamation can pretend to any special import
ance is clear from a note of Conrad Peutinger's, who was present
during the address and committed his impression to writing the
following day. When Luther had finished his explanation, so it
runs, the " official " again exhorted him to retract, seeing he had
already been condemned by higher councils. Thereupon Luther
retorted that the Councils " had also erred and over and over
again contradicted themselves and come into opposition with
the Divine Law. This the ' official ' denied. Luther insisted that
it was so and offered to prove it. This brought the discussion
suddenly to an end, and there was a great outcry as Luther left
the place. In the midst of it he recommended himself submissively
to His Imperial Mt. [Majesty]. Before concluding he uttered
the words : May God come to my help." According to this
account the words were interjected as Luther was about to leave
the assembly, in the midst of the tumult and " great outcry "
which followed his recommending himself to the Imperial pro
tection.

In view of the circumstances just described, P. Kalkoff, years
ago, admitted that Luther's words as quoted above had " no
claim to credibility,"1 while, quite recently, H. Bohmer declared
that " it would be well not to quote any more these most cele
brated of Luther's words as though they were his. Many will
be sorry, yet the absence of these words need not affect our
opinion of Luther's behaviour at Worms."2 W. Friedensburg is
also of opinion that " we must, at any rate, give up the emphatic
conclusion of the speech — ' Hero I stand,' etc. — as unhistorical ;
the searching examinations made in connection with the Reich-
stagsakten have rendered it certain that Luther's conclusion
was simply : ' God help me, Amen.' " Of this Karl Miiller
adduced conclusive proofs.3

The immense success of the legend of the manly, decisive,
closing words so solemnly uttered in the assembly is quite ex
plicable when we come to consider the circumstances. The Diet,
an event which stands out in such strong relief in Luther's
history, where his friends seemed to see his star rising on the
horizon only to set again suddenly behind the mountain fortress,
was itself of a nature to invite them to embellish it with fiction. -

Apart from the legends in circulation among Luther's
friends, there were others which went the rounds among his
opponents and later polemics. Such is the statement to the
effect that Luther played the coward at Worms, and that his
assumed boldness and audacity was merely due to the

1 "Die Depeschen des Nuntius Aleander vom Wormser Reich
stag/' 1897, p. 174, n. 2.

"( Luther im Lichte der neueren Forschung2," p. 25.

" Schriften des Vereins fur Reformationsgesch.," No. 100, p. 26.

LUTHER'S CONDUCT AT WORMS 77

promises of material assistance, or, as Thomas Miinzer
asserts, to actual coercion on the part of his own followers.

According to all we have seen, Luther's chief motive-force was
his passionate prepossession in favour of his own ideas. It is
true that, especially previous to the Diet, this was alloyed with
a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits,
that when summoned to Worms, he " fell into a tremble " till
he determined to bid defiance to the devils there.1 On his first
appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to
those who heard him, " in an almost inaudible voice," and gave
the impression of being a timid man.2 Later his enthusiasm and
his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his
cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no
doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the
thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral
support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and
by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged
with electricity. " Counts and Nobles," he himself says later,
" looked hard at me ; as a result of my sermon, as people in the
know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the
'Gravamina'] against the clergy. They [the members of the
Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they
apprehended a tumult."3 It was his fiery conviction that he
had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Anti
christ, combined with his assurance of outward support, that
inspired him with that " mad courage " of which he was wont
to talk even to the end of his life : "I was undismayed and
feared nothing ; God alone is able to make a man mad after this
fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now."4

The unfavourable accounts, circulated from early days
among Luther's opponents concerning his mode of life at
Worms, must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Luther was said to have " distinguished himself by drunken
ness," and to have indulged in moral " excesses." Incontro
vertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such
statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes
of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of
thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to
prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious
life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the
charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded
partly on the impression made by Luther's appearance, partly
on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of the

1 Cp. above, p. 02, n. 2, the quotation from the " Table-Talk."

2 The Frankfort delegate, in Janssen-Pastor, " Hist, of the German
People," Engl. Trans., 3, p. 191

3 Cordatus, " Tagebuch," p. 474.

4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, pp. 409, 771.

78 THE APOSTASY

Church were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst,
of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to
be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient dis
cernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-
value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed
deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he
wore the Augustinian habit ; the self-confidence, which he never
lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption
and excessive self-sufficiency ; it may also be that the manners
which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited
hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet ; if
he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his
friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as
betraying his German love of the bottle ; at the same time it is
true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the
journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he
had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to
dispel sad thoughts.

Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present
at Worms, wrote to Venice : " Martin has scarcely fulfilled the
expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a
blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed
in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence." 1
Perhaps the remark concerning Luther's want of culture and
wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an out
come of Luther's behaviour at his first interrogation ; we have
already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness
then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.2

The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus
Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Con
tarini. It is not however certain that he was an " eye-witness,"
as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever
saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his
appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal
observation.3 Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects
impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no
detail, save that he sets on record the " many bowls of Malvasian "
which Luther, " being very fond of that wine," drank before his
departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the
Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed : " This man
will never make a heretic of me." Aleander merely adds, that

1 In the Diary of Marino Sanuto, " R. deputaz. Veneta di Storia
Patria," t. 30, Venezia, 1891, 212. At the end of the passage Denifle
(in "Luther," I2, p. 589, n. 1) proposed that " impudentiam " should
be read in place of " imprudentiam " (i.e. " impudenza " in place of
" imprudenza "), as the want of " prudence " had already been blamed.
When Contarini speaks of Luther as " assai incontinente," the " in
continence " is that of temper.

2 Janssen-Pastor, " Hist, of the German People," Engl. Trans.,

3 Cp. Kalkoff, " Depeschen," 2 p. 169, n. 1 ; p. 172, n. 1.

THE WARTBURG 79

almost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool ;
and that it was unnecessary to speak of " the drunkenness to which
he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarse
ness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait." By his
behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for
him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (" dissolute,
demoniaco ").1 Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be
referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther's
moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his
reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he,
the Count, had been quite Lutheran ; hence nothing to the
prejudice of Luther's morals can have reached his ears there.
In the absence of any further information we may safely assume
that it was merely Luther's general behaviour which was rather
severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.

A capital opportunity for a closer study of Luther's mind
is afforded by his life and doings in the Wartburg.

4. Luther's sojourn at the Wartburg

The solitude of the Wartburg afforded Luther a refuge
for almost ten months, to him a lengthy period.

Whereas but a little while before he had been inspirited
by the loud applause of his followers and roused by the
opposition of those in high places to a struggle which made
him utterly oblivious of self, here, in the quiet of the
mountain stronghold, the thoughts born of his solitude
assailed him in every conceivable form. He was altogether
thrown upon himself and his studies. The croaking of the
ravens and magpies about the towers in front of his windows
sounded like the voices which spoke in the depths of his
soul.

Looking back upon his conduct at Worms, he now began
to doubt ; how, indeed, could an outlaw do otherwise, even
had he not undertaken so subversive a venture as Luther ?
To this was added, in his case, the responsibility for the storm
he had let loose on his beloved native land. His own con
fession runs : " How often did my heart faint for fear, and
reproach me thus : You wanted to be wise beyond all
others. Are then all others in their countless multitude
mistaken ? Have so many centuries all been in the wrong ?
Supposing you were mistaken, and, owing to your mistake,

1 Passages in Brieger, " Aleander und Luther," 1884, p. 170. Cp.
Kalkoff, " Depeschen," p. 170. Balan, " Monumenta reform. Luther-
anse," pp. 109, £05.

80 THE APOSTASY

were to drag down with you to eternal damnation so many
human creatures I"1

He must often have asked himself such questions,
especially at the beginning of the " hermit life," as he calls
it, which he led within those walls. But to these question
ings he of set purpose refused to give the right answer ; he
had set out on the downward path and could not go back ;
of this he came to convince himself as the result of a lengthy
struggle.

This is the point which it is incumbent on the psychologist
to study beyond all else. Luther's everyday life and his
studies at Worms have been discussed often enough already.

It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his
interior struggles in those days, " to run counter to the custom
of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumer
able men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a
deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations ? "
" How hard is it," he exclaims from his own experience, " to
come to terms with one's own conscience when it has long been
accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is
nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words
from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my con
science as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him
as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and
the Universities as his dens of iniquity ! " He summoned all his
spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. " Christ at
length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and
true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks
at the Popish objections ; I am in a haven of safety and laugh
at the storms which rage without."2

From the Catholic point of view, what he had done was violently
to suppress the higher voice which had spoken to him in his
solitude. Yet this voice was again to make itself heard, and
with greater force than ever.

Luther had then succeeded so well in silencing it that he was
able to write to his friends, as it seems, without the slightest
scruple, that, as to Worms, he was only ashamed of not having
spoken more bravely and emphatically before the whole Empire ;
were he compelled to appear there again, they would hear a very
different tale of him. " I desire nothing more ardently than to
bare my breast to the attacks of my adversaries." He spent his
whole time in picturing to himself " the empire of Antichrist,"
a frightful vision of the wrath of God.3 With such pictures he

1 Preface to the tract, " On the abuse of the Mass," indited as a
letter to the Wittenberg Augustinians, Latin Works, Weim. ed., 8,
p. 411 seq. " Opp. Lat. var.," 6, p. 116. Cp. " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 243.

2 In the Latin text, ibid., p. 412 = 116.

3 To Melanchthon, May 12, 1521, " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 148.

THE WARTBURG 81

spurs himself on, and encourages Melanchthon, with whose
assistance he was unable to dispense, to overcome his timidity
and vacillation. In many of his letters from the Wartburg he
exhorts his friends to courage and confidence, being anxious to
counteract by every possible effort the ill-effects of his absence.
In these letters his language is, as a rule, permeated by a fanatical
and, at times, mystical tone, even more so than any of his previous
utterances. He exhibits even less restraint than formerly in
his polemics. " Unless a man scolds, bites and taunts, he
achieves nothing. If we admonish the Popes respectfully, they
take it for flattery and fancy they have a right to remain un-
reformed. But Jeremias exhorts me, and says to me : ' Cursed
be he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully ' (xlviii. 10), and
calls for the use of the sword against the enemies of God."1

Two phenomena which accompanied this frenzy render it
still graver in the eyes of an onlooker. These were, on the
one hand, certain occurrences which bordered on hallucina
tion, and, on the other, frightful assaults of the tempter.

Concerning both, his letters of that time, and likewise his
own accounts at a later date, supply us with definite informa
tion. It is, indeed, a dark page on which they direct our
attention. All the circumstances must carefully be borne in
mind. First, much must be attributed to the influence of
his new and unaccustomed place of abode and the strange
nature of his surroundings. His gloomy meditations and
enforced leisure ; a more generous diet, which, in comparison
with his former circumstances, meant to the Monk, now
metamorphosed into " Squire George," an almost luxurious
mode of living ; finally, bodily discomfort, for instance, the
constipation to which he frequently refers as troubling him, 2
all this tended to develop an abnormal condition of soul to
which his former psychological states of terror may also have
contributed. He fancied, and all his life maintained, that in
the Wartburg he had suffered bodily assaults of the devil.

Luther believed that he had not only heard the devil
tormenting him by day, and more particularly by night,
with divers dreadful noises, but that he had seen him in his
room under the form of a huge black dog, and had chased
him away by prayer. His statements, to which we shall
return in detail in another connection (vol. vi., xxxvi. 3 ;
cp. vol. v., xxxi. 4), arc such as presuppose, at the very

1 To Spalatin, September 9, 1521, ibid., p. 229.

2 Cp. letter to Melanchthon of May 12, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3
p. 149.

H. G

82 THE APOSTASY

least, the strangest illusions. Some have even opined that
he suffered from real hallucinations of hearing and sight,
though they have adduced no definite proof of such. The
disputes with the devil, of which he speaks, are certainly
nothing more than a rhetorical version of his own sclf-
communings.

If Luther brought with him to the Wartburg a large stock of
popular superstition, he increased it yet more within those dreary
walls, thanks to the sensitiveness of his lively imagination, until
he himself became the plaything of his fancy. " Because he was
so lonely," writes his friend the physician Ratzeberger, on the
strength of Luther's personal communication, " he was beset
with ghosts and noisy spirits which gave him much concern."
And after quoting the tale of the dog he goes on : " Such- like
and many other ghosts came to him at that time, all of which he
drove away by prayer, and which he would not talk about, for
he said he would never tell anyone by how many different kinds
of ghosts he had been molested."1

The temptations of the flesh which he then experienced
Luther also attributed, in the main, to the devil. They fell
upon him with greater force than ever before. Their
strength displeased him, according to his letters, and he
sought to resist them, though it is plain from his words that
he realised the utter futility of his desire to rid himself of
them. In this state of darkness he directed his thoughts
more vigorously than heretofore to the question of monastic
vows and their binding power. He seems to be clanking the
chains by which he had by his own vow freely pledged
himself to the Almighty.

In July, 1521, in a letter from the Wartburg to his friend
Melanchthon, while repudiating, in the somewhat bombastic
fashion of the Humanists, Melanchthon's praise, he makes the
following confession: "Your good opinion of me shames and
tortures me. For I sit here [instead of working for God's cause
as you fondly imagine] hardened in immobility, praying, un
happily, too little instead of sighing over the Church of God ; nay,
I burn with the flames of my untamed flesh ; in short, I ought to
be glowing in the spirit, and instead I glow in the flesh, in lust,
laziness, idleness and drowsiness, and know not whether God
has not turned away His face from me because you have ceased to
pray for me. You, who are more rich in the gifts of God than I,
are now holding my place. For a whole week I have neither
written, prayed nor studied, plagued partly by temptations of
the flesh, partly by the other trouble/' The other trouble was

1 Ratzeberger, " Gesch.," ed. Neudecker, p. 54.

THE WARTBURG 83

the painful bodily ailment mentioned above, to which he returns
here in greater detail. " Pray for me," he concludes this letter —
in which he seeks to confirm his friends in the course upon which
they had set out, — " pray, for in this solitude I am sinking into
sin."1 And in another letter, in December, we again have an
allusion to his besetting temptations : "I am healthy in body
and am well cared for, but I am also severely tried by sin and
temptations. Pray for me, and fare you well."2 He here speaks
of sins and temptations, but it may well be that under " sins "
he here, as elsewhere, comprehends concupiscence, which he, in
accordance with his teaching, looked upon as sin.

" Believe me," he says in a letter of that time to Nicholas
Gerbel of Strasburg, " in the quiet of my hermitage I am exposed
to the attacks of a thousand devils. It is far easier to fight
against men, who are devils incarnate, than against the ' spirits
of wickedness dwelling in high places ' (Eph. vi. 12). I fall fre
quently, but the right hand of the Lord again raises me up."3

The distaste which was growing up within him for the vow of
chastity which he had once esteemed so highly, did not appear
to him to come from the devil, for he congratulates the same
friend that he has forsaken the " unclean and in its nature
damnable state of celibacy," in order to enter the " married
state ordained by God." " I consider the married state a true
Paradise, even though the married couple should live in the
greatest indigence." At the same time he privately informs
Gerbel, that, with the co-operation of Melanchthon, he has
already started " a powerful conspiracy with the object of
setting aside the vows of the clergy and religious." He is here
alluding to the tract he was then writing " On Monastic Vows."
" The womb is fruitful, and is soon due to bring forth ; if Christ
wills it will give birth to a child [the tract in question], which
shall break in pieces with a rod of iron (Apoc. xii. 5) the Papists,
sophists, religiosists [defenders of religious Orders] and Herodians."
" O how criminal is Antichrist, seeing that Satan by his means
has laid waste all the mysteries of Christian piety. ... I daily
see so much that is dreadful in the wretched celibacy of young
men and women that nothing sounds more evil in my ears than
the words nun, monk and priest."4

Hence, at the beginning of November, 1521, when he was
engaged on the momentous work " On Monastic Vows," he
believed he had found decisive biblical arguments against
the state of chastity and continence, recommended though
it had been by Christ and His Apostles.

Previously the case had been different, when Carlstadt

1 On July 13, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 189.

2 To his intimate friend Johann Lang, December 18, 1521, ibid., p.
256. 3 On November 1, 1521, ibid., p. 240.

* Ibid., p. 241.

84 THE APOSTASY

and others first began to boggle at vows ; Luther was then
still undecided, seeking for ostensibly theological arguments
with which to demolish the difficulty. At that time he had
been troubled by such plain biblical words as those of the
Psalmist, " Vow yc and pray to the Lord your God "
(Ps. Ixxv. 12). Even in August, 1521, he had confided his
scruples to Spalatin from the Wartburg : " What can be
more perilous than to invite so large a number of unmarried
persons to enter into matrimony on the strength of a few
passages of doubtful meaning ? The consequence will only
be that consciences will be still more troubled than they are
at present. I, too, would fain see celibacy made optional,
as the Gospel wills, but I do not yet see my way to proving
this."1 We likewise find him criticising rather un
kindly Melanchthon's reasons, because they took a wrong
way to a goal after which he was himself ardently striving,
viz. the setting aside of the vow of celibacy. He was
suffering, he admits, " grievous pain through being unable
to find the right answer to the question."2

Such efforts were naturally crowned with success in
the end.

Five weeks later he was able to inform Melanchthon :
" It seems to me that now I can say with confidence how
our task is to be accomplished. The argument is briefly
this : Whoever has taken a vow in a spirit opposed to
evangelical freedom must be set free and his vow be
anathema. Such, however, are all those who have taken
the vow in the search for salvation, or justification. Since
the greater number of those taking vows make them for
this reason, it is clear that their vow is godless, sacrilegious,
contrary to the Gospel and hence to be dissolved and laid
under a curse."3

Thus it was the indefinite and elastic idea of " evangelical
freedom " which was finally to settle the question. Concern
ing his own frame of mind while working out this idea in his
tract, he says to Spalatin, on November 11, in a letter of
complaint about other matters : " I am going to make war

1 On August 15, 1521, " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 218.

2 On August 3, 1521, ibid., p. 213. The above is the real transla
tion of the words made use of, " quantis urgear cestibus," according
to the context.

3 On September 9, 1521, ibid., 3, p. 224.

THE WARTBURG 85

against religious vows. ... I am suffering from tempta
tions, and out of temper, so don't be offended. There is
more than one Satan contending with me ; I am alone,
and yet at times not alone."1

The book was finished in November and sent out under
the title, " On Monastic Vows."2 The same strange argu
ment, based on evangelical freedom, recurs therein again and
again under all sorts of rhetorical forms ; the tract is also
noteworthy for its distortion of the Church's teaching,3
though we cannot here enter in detail into its theology and
misstatements. The very origin of the book does not
inspire confidence. Many great and monumental historical
works and events have originated in conditions far from
blameless, but few of Luther's writings have sprung from
so base a source as this one ; yet its results were far-reach
ing, and it was a means of seducing countless wavering and
careless religious, depicting the monasteries and furthering
immensely the new evangelical teaching. While writing the
book Luther had naturally in his mind the multitude he
was so desirous of setting free, and chose his language
accordingly.

1 " Brief wechael," 3, p. 247.

2 The Latin work will be found in Weim. ed., 8, p. 564 ff. ; in
Erl. ed., " Opp. Lat. var.," G, p. 234 scq. The MS. was sent to Spalatin
on November 22, and was published at the end of February, 1522.
Denifle has carefully analysed the contents and pointed out the fal
lacies contained in the book and certain other things not at all to
Luther's credit. See " Luther und Luthertum," I2, pp. 29, 348. Cp. N.
Paulus, " Zu Luthors Scrift uber die Monchsgcliibde " ("Hist. Jahrb.,"
27, 1906, pp. 487, 517), an article rich in matter, called forth by O.
Scheel's attack on Denifle. Paulus therein shows once more that
Luther was wrong in ascribing to the Church the teaching that per
fection- is to be attained only in the religious state, and by the observ
ance of vows (cp. present work, vol. iv., xxiv. 4), or in claiming that
the Church has a " twofold ideal of life," and conception of religion,
a lower one for the laity and a higher one for religious (p. 496 ff.). He
proves, at length, the falsehood of the view cherished among Protes
tants, in spite of Denifle's refutation, that all, or nearly all, entered
the religious life in order to obtain justification (p. 506 ff), arid fully
explains the late mediaeval expression which compares religious pro
fession to Baptism (p. 510 ff.).

3 Caspar Schatzgeyer, in a polemic against Luther wrote : " One
is almost tempted to think that this book, so brimful of ire, was written
by a drunken man, or by the infernal spirit himself" ("Replica"
[sine loc. et an.], Augsburg, 1522, fol. El). The opinion of the Paris
theologian, Jodocus Clichtoveus (" Antilutherus," Parisiis, 1524, fol.
124'), was very similar. As for Johann Dietcnberger, he declared that
the book bristled with lies, calumnies, and insults (" De votis monas-
ticis," lib. secundus, Colon., 1524, fol. T5').

86 THE APOSTASY

But what were his thoughts concerning himself at that
period, when the idea of matrimony had not yet dawned
upon him ?

In the letter to Melanchthon just referred to, he says of him
self : " If I had had the above argument [concerning evangelical
freedom] before my eyes when I made my vow, I should never
have taken it. I too am, therefore, uncertain as to the frame of
mind in which I did take it ; I was rather carried away than
drawn, such was God's will ; I fear that I too made a godless and
sacrilegious vow. . . . Later, when the vows were made, my
earthly father, who was angry about it all, said to me when he
had calmed down : ' If only it was not a snare of Satan ! ' His
words made such an impression on me that I remember them
better than anything else he ever said, and I believe that through
his mouth God spoke to me, at a late hour indeed, and as from
afar, to rebuke and warn me."1

Very closely connected with his own development is the fact
that at that time, on several occasions, he described most glaringly
and untruthfully the moral corruption in which the Papists were
sunk, owing to the vow of chastity and the state of celibacy. It
seems to have been his way of quieting his conscience. So
greatly does he generalise concerning the evil which he attributes
with much exaggeration to his fellows in the religious state,
representing it as an inevitable result of monastic life, that,
strange to say, he forgets to except himself. Only at a much
later date did he casually inform his hearers that, through God's
dispensation, he had preserved his chastity.2

As to whether he himself had any intention then of dissolving
his vow by marriage, we may put on record what he had said at
an earlier date in a written sermon intended for the general
public : "I hope I have got so far that, with God's grace, I may
remain as I am," but he adds : " though I am not yet out of the
wood and dare not compare myself to the chaste hearts, still I
should be sorry and pray God graciously to preserve me from
it."3 The " chaste hearts " are the " false saints " whom he is
assailing in that particular section of his sermon. To the " false
saints " he opposes the true ones, much as in his earliest sermons
at Wittenberg he had attacked the stricter monks and their
observance, describing them opprobriously as little saints and
proud self-righteous by works. The connecting link between the
two, i.e. his erroneous opposition to all good works and re
nunciation of sensuality, here, and again and again elsewhere, is
clearly Luther's starting-point.

He fancies he hears those who were desirous of faithfully
keeping the vow they had made to God reproaching him with

1 " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 225.

2 Sermon of 1537, " Werke," Erl. ed., 44, p. 148 : " I have myself
had it [the gift of chastity], although with many evil thoughts and
dreams."

8 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 1, 1, p. 708; Erl. 102, p. 464.

THE WARTBURG 87

his sensuality, " how they open their jaws," and say, " alas,
poor monk, how he must feel the weight of his cowl, how pleased
he would be to have a wife ! But let them blaspheme," such is
his answer, one typical of his language on the subject, " let them
blaspheme, these chaste hearts and great saints, let them be of
iron and stone as they feign to be ; but as for you, beware of
forgetting that you are a man of flesh and blood ; leave it to
God to judge between the angelical and mighty heroes and the
despised and feeble sinners. If you only knew who they are who
make a show of such great chastity and discipline, and what that
is of which St. Paul speaks, Ephesians v. 12 : ' For of the things
that are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak,'
you would not esteem their boasted chastity fit even for a prosti
tute to wipe her boots on. Here we have the perversion that the
chaste are the unchaste and deceive all that come in contact
with them."1

Yet the pious religious who were true to their vows would certainly
have been the last to deny that they were mere flesh and blood ;
they did not pretend to be made of " iron," nor did they vaunt
their " boasted chastity," but prayed to God, did humble penance,
and so acquired the grace necessary for keeping what they had
cheerfully vowed in the fear of the Lord and in the consoling
hope of an eternal reward. On the other hand, we hear but little
of Luther's praying in the Wartburg, and still less of his having
performed penance. And yet those walls were full of the memory
of that great Saint, Elizabeth of Hungary, whose life was a
touching example of zealous prayer and penance.

Luther, during his stay in the Castle, accused himself in very

bolical language on May 14, 1521, in a letter to Spalatin,2 soon
after his arrival at the Wartburg. Already before this, at Witten
berg, in a letter to Staupitz, he had reproached himself with
drunkenness.3

If, however, the " luxury " with which he reproached himself
was no graver than his " idleness," then Luther is not really
in such a bad case, for his " idleness " was so little meant to be
taken literally, that, in the same letter, he immediately goes on to
speak of his literary projects : "I am about to write a German
sermon on the freedom of auricular confession [this duly ap
peared and was dedicated to Sickingen] ; I also intend to continue
the Commentary on the Psalms [a plan never realised] ; also
my postils as soon as I have received what I require from Witten
berg [the German postil alone was published] ; I am also await
ing the unfinished MS. of the Magnificat [this also was published
later]."

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 1, 1, p. 708 ; Erl. ed., 102, p. 464.

2 " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 154 : " Oliosus et crapulosus."

3 On February 20, 1519, " Briefwechsel," 1, p. 431 : "Homo ex-
positus crapulce."

88 THE APOSTASY

It was not in his nature to be really idle.
His chief German work, which was to render him so
popular, viz. his translation of the Bible, was commenced
in the Wartburg, where he started with the translation of
the New Testament from the Greek. We shall speak else
where of the merits and defects of this translation. The
general excellence of its style and language cannot hide the
theological bias which frequently guides the writer's pen,
nor can its value as a popular work allow us to overlook the
fact that he was often carried away by the precipitation
incidental to his temperament.1

Another work which he finished within those quiet walls
treated of the Sacrifice of the Mass. His thoughts early
turned with aversion from this centre of Catholic worship ;
indeed, he seemed bent on robbing the Church of the very
pearl of her worship. He appears to have said Mass for the
last time on his way to Augsburg to meet Cardinal Cajetan.
In the Wartburg he refused to have anything to do with
the " Mass priest " living there. On August 1, 1521, he
wrote to Melanchthon, that the renewal of Christ's institu
tion of the celebration of the Supper, proposed by his
friends at Wittenberg, agreed entirely with the plans he had
in view when he should return, and that from that time
forward he would never again say a private Mass.2

The work just mentioned, which appeared in 1522, is
entitled, " On the Abuse of the Mass." He dedicated it in
the Preface " to the Augustinians of Wittenberg," his dear
brethren, because he had heard in his solitude, so he says,
" that they had been the first to commence setting aside
the abuse of Masses in their assembly [congregation]."3
He is desirous of fortifying their " consciences " against
the Mass, because he is anxious lest " all should not have
the same constancy, and good conscience, in the under
taking of so great and notable a work." In the same way
as he in his struggle had attained to assurance of conscience,
so they, too, must act " with a like conscience, faith and

1 Cp. Paul de Lagarde, ." Mitteilungen," 3, Gottingen, 1889, p. 336.
" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 208. Cp. K. Muller, " Luther und Karl-
stadt," 1907, p. 5 ff.

3 Dedication of the German edition, 1522. " Werke," Weim. ed.
8, p. 482 ; Erl. ed., 53, p. 93. The work in Latin in " Werke," Weim'
ed., 8, p. 398 ff. German, ibid., p. 477 ff, and in Erl. ed., 28, p. 28.
The German dedication agrees with the Latin. See above, p. 80, n. 1.

THE WARTBURG 89

trust, and look on the opinion of the whole world as nothing
but chaff and straw, knowing that we are sent to a death-
struggle against the devil and all his might, yea, against
the judgment of God, and, like Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 28), can
only overcome by our strength of faith."

To despise the protests of the world was not so difficult,
but to pay " no heed to the devil and the solemn judgment
of God " was a harder task.

It would seem that some of the Augustinians were not
capable of this, and had become uneasy concerning the
innovations. He is thereupon at pains to assure them that
he is an expert in the matter ; he declares that he has
learnt from experience how " our conscience makes us out
to be sinners in God's sight and deserving of eternal repro
bation, unless it is wrell preserved and protected at every
point by the holy, strong and veracious Word of God."1
This " stronghold " he would fain open to them by
demonstrating from the Word of God the horrors of the
Sacrifice of the Mass.

Hence he begins by overthrowing, with incredible determina
tion, everything that might be advanced against him and in
favour of the Mass in general by the " doctrine and discipline of
the Church, the teaching of the Fathers, immemorial custom and
usage," commandments of men and theological faculties, Saints,
Fathers, or, in fine, the " Pope and his Gomorrhas." The utter
unrestraint of his language here and there is only matched by
the extravagance of his ideas and interpretation of the Bible.

All men are priests, he declares ; as to Mass priests there should
be none. " I defy the idols and pomps of this world, the Pope
and his parsons. You fine priestlings, can you point out to us in
all the gospels and epistles a single bit of proof that you are
or were intended to act as priests for other Christians? '"• Who
ever dares to adduce the well-known passages in the Bible to the
contrary he looks on as a " rude, unlettered donkey." Why ?
Because he would not otherwise defend the " smeared and shorn
priesthood." " O worthy patron of the shaven, oily little gods,"
he says to him with mocking commiseration.3 We are the
persecuted party, we, who, whilst acknowledging Christ's presence
in the Sacrament, will have nothing to do with the sacrificial
character of the Supper. For whoever holds fast simply to
Christ's institution is scolded as a heretic by the Pope. " There
they sit, the unlettered, godless hippopotami, on costly, royal
thrones, Pope, Cardinal, bishop, monk and parson with their
schools of Paris and Louvain, and their dear sisters Sodom and

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., p. 483 ; Erl. ed., 28, p. 30.

2 Ibid., p. 488 = 36. 3 Ibid., p. 488f. = 37f.

90 THE APOSTASY

Gomorrha." As soon as they see the poor, small, despised crew
[the opponents of the Mass] they wax wroth, " frown, turn up
their noses, hold up their hands in horror, and cry : ' The heretics
do not observe the usage and form of the Roman Church ' " ;
but they themselves are "unlearned dunces and donkeys."1

The author, whose very pen seems steeped in ire, goes off at a
tangent to speak of the Pope and of celibacy.

He is never tired of explaining " that the abominable and
horrid priesthood of the Papists came into the world from the
devil " ; " the Pope is a true apostle of his master the hellish
fiend, according to whose will he lives and reigns " ; he has
dropped into the holy kingdom of the priesthood common to all
like the " devil's hog he is, and with his snout " has befouled,
yea, destroyed it ; with his celibacy he has raised up a priest
hood which is " a brew of all abominations."2 The devil himself
does not suffice to make Luther's language strong enough for his
liking, and he is driven to his imagination for other ugly pictures.

" I believe, that, even had the Pope made fornication obligatory,
he would not have given rise to and furthered such great un-
chastity [as by celibacy]." " Who can sufficiently deplore the
fury of the devil with his godless, cursed law ? " The " Roman
knave " wishes to rule everywhere, and the " universities, those
shameless brothels, sit still and say nothing. . . . They, like
obedient children of the Church, carry out the commands of the
whoremaster. Every Christian ought to resist him at the risk of
his life, even though he had a thousand heads, because we see
how the poor, simple, common folk who stand in terror of his
childish, shameful Bulls, do, and submit to, whatever the damned
Roman rogue invents with the help of the devil."3

Many of his contemporaries may well be excused for having
felt that such language was the result of the Pope's Bull ; the
curse of the Church had overtaken Luther, in the solitude of the
Wartburg it had done its work, and now the spirit of evil and
darkness had gained complete mastery.4

" So great," he cries, " is God's anger over this vale of Tafet
and Hinnan that those who are most learned, and live most
chastely, do more harm than those who learn nothing and live
in fornication." " O unhappy wretches that we are, who live in
these latter days among so many Baalites, Bethelites and Molo-
chites, who all appear so spiritual and Christian, and yet have
swallowed up the whole world and themselves desire to be the
only Church ; they live and laugh in their security and freedom,
instead of weeping tears of blood over the cruel murder of the
children of our people."5

In conclusion, he gives his open approval to the Wittenbergers,
that " Mass is no longer said, that there is no more organ-playing,"
and that " bleating and bellowing " has ceased in the Church,

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., p. 510 = 68.

2 Ibid., p. 538, 539, 540 = 106, 107, 109.

3 Ibid., p. 549 = 121. * Cp. volume iv., xxvii.

6 " Werke," Weim. ed., 8, pp. .559, 560 ; Erl. ed., 28, pp. 135, 137.

THE WARTBURG 91

so that the Papists say : " They are all heretics and have gone
crazy."1 It seems to him that Saxony is the happiest of lands,
" because there the living truth of the Gospel has arisen " ;
surely the Elector Frederick must be the Prince, foretold by
prophecy, who was to deliver the Holy Sepulchre ; himself he
compares to the " Angel at the Sepulchre," or to Magdalene who
announced the Resurrection.2

His self-confidence and arrogance had not been shaken
by the many weary hours of lonely introspection in the
Wartburg, but, on the contrary, had been nourished and
inflamed. That was the period of his " spiritual baptism " ;
he felt volcanic forces surging up within him. He believed
that a power from above had commanded him to teach as
he was doing. Hence he called the Wartburg his Patmos ;
as the Apostle John had received his revelation on Patmos,
so, as he thought, he also had been favoured in his seclusion
with mysterious communications from above.

The idea of a divine commission now began to penetrate
all his being with overwhelming force.

When the ecclesiastical troubles at Wittenberg neces
sitated his permanent return thither, he declared to the
Elector, who had hitherto never heard such language from
his lips, " Your Electoral Grace is already aware, or, if
unaware, is hereby apprised of the fact, that I have not
received the Gospel from man, but from heaven only,
through Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I might 'already
have accounted myself and signed myself a servant and
evangelist, and for the future shall do so."3 We must also
refer to the days of his Saxon Patmos — which exercised so
deep an influence on his interior life— the remarkable
mystical utterance to which his pupils afterwards declared
he had given vent at a later date, viz. that he had been
" commanded," nay, " enjoined under pain of eternal
reprobation (' interminaretur ') not to doubt in any way of
these things [of the doctrines he was to teach]."4

Every road that led back to his duty to the Church and
his Order was barred by the gloomy enthusiasm Luther
kindled within himself, subsequently to his spiritual
baptism in the Wartburg.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 561 = 138. 2 Ibid., p. 562 = 139 f.
3 On March 5, 1522, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 106 (" Brief wechsel,"
3, p. 296).

* In Lauterbach's " Tagebuch," p. 62, n. (from Khummer's Notes).

92 THE APOSTASY

The time spent in the Wartburg brought him his final
conviction in his calling as a prophet and his divine com
mission, but if we arc to understand Luther aright we must
not forget that this conviction was a matter of gradual
growth (cp. vol. iii., xvi. 1).

We cannot doubt that even in the first years of his public
career, certainly in 1519 and 1520, the belief in his own
divine mission had begun to take firm root in his mind.

In order to explain the rise of this idea we must turn first
of all to his confidential letters dating from this period ;
his public writings in this respect are of less importance.
With their help it is possible to recognise to some extent
the course of this remarkable psychological development.
So soon as he had perceived that his discovery, of the worth-
lessness of good works, and of justification by faith alone,
was in permanent contradiction to the teaching of the
Roman Church, the presentiment necessarily began to
awaken within him, that the whole body of the faithful had
been led by Rome into the greatest darkness. He fancied
himself fortified in this idea by the sight of the real abuses
wrhich had overspread the whole life of the Church in his
time. He thought he descried a universal corruption which
had penetrated down to the very root of ccclesiasticism,
and he did not scruple to say so in his earliest sermons and
lectures. He felt it his duty to bewail the falling away.
In the hours in which he gave free play to his fancy, it
even seemed to him that Christ and the Gospel had almost
disappeared.

The applause which greeted the appearance of his first
writings, and which he eagerly accepted, confirmed him
in his belief that he had made a most far-reaching dis
covery. He lacked the sense and discrimination which
might have enabled him to see the too great importance
he was ascribing to his invention. He says in May, 1518, to
an elderly friend who opposed his views : My followers,
prelates of the Church and scholarly men of the world, all
rightly admit, that " formerly they had heard nothing of
Christ and the Gospel." " To put it briefly, I am convinced
that no reform of the Church is possible unless the ecclesi
astical dogmas, the decisions of the Popes, the theology of
the schools, philosophy and logic as they exist at present
are completely altered. ... I fear no man's contradiction

THE WARTBURG 93

when defending such a thesis." J In the same year, in March,
he wrote to a friendly ecclesiastic, that the theologians who
had hitherto occupied the professorial chairs, Adz. the
schoolmen, did not understand the Gospel and the Bible
one bit. " To quibble about the meaning of words is not
to interpret the Gospel. All the Professors, Universities and
Doctors are nothing but shadows whom you have no cause
to be afraid of."2

If he wished to proceed further — and we know how he
allowed himself to be carried away— he could not do other
wise than assume to himself the dignity of a divinely
appointed teacher. No one save a prophet could dare
condemn the whole of the past in the way he was doing.

During the excitement incidental to periods of tran
sition such as Luther's, belief in a supernatural calling was
no rare thing. Those who felt within themselves unusual
powers and wished to assume the command of the move
ments of the day not unfrequently laid claim to a divine
mission. Not only fanatics from the ranks of the Ana
baptists, but worldly minded men, such as Hutten and
Sickingen, dreamt, in Luther's day, of great enterprises for
which they had been chosen. In short, there were only two
courses open to Luther, either to draw back when it was
seen that the Church remained resolutely opposed to him,
or to vindicate his assaults by representing himself as a
messenger sent by God. Luther was not slowr to adopt the
latter course. The idea to him was no mere passing fancy,
but took firm root in his mind. He assured his friends that
he was daily receiving new light from God in this matter
through the study of the Scripture.

It was under the influence of this persuasion that, in
January, 1518, he wrote the following remarkable words to
Spalatin : "To those who are desirous of working for the
glory of God, an insight into the written Word of God is
given from above, in answer to their prayers ; this I have
experienced " (" experto crede ista ") ; he says that the
action of the Holy Ghost may be relied on, and urges others

1 To Jodocus Trutfetter, Professor at Erfurt, May 9, 1518, " Brief -
wechsel," 1, p. 188 : " Uno ore dicunt, sese prius non novisse nee audi-
visse Christum et Evangelium," etc.

2 To Sylvius Egranus, preacher at Zwickau, March 24, 1518,
" Brief wechsel," 1, p. 173.

94 THE APOSTASY

to do as he has done.1 It would also appear, that, believing
firmly that he was under the " influence of the Holy Ghost,"
he, for a while, cherished the illusion that the Church would
gradually come over to his teaching. When at length he
was forced to recognise that the ecclesiastical authorities
were, on the contrary, determined to check him, he decided
to throAV overboard all the preceding ages and the whole
authority of the Church. As a natural consequence he then
proceeded to reform the old and true idea of the Church.
The preserving and proclaiming of the faith is committed to
no external teaching office instituted by Christ, such was
his teaching, but simply to the illumination of the Spirit ;
each one is led by this interior guide ; it is the Spirit who is
directing me in the struggle just commenced and who,
through me, will bring back to the world the Gospel which
has so long lain hidden under rubbish.

5. Wartburg Legends

Luther's adversaries have frequently taken the statements
contained in the letters of the lonely inmate of the castle2
concerning his carnal temptations, and his indulgence in
eating and drinking (" crapula "), rather too unfavourably,
as though he had been referring to real, wilful sin rather
than to mere temptation, and as though Luther was not
exaggerating in his usual vein when he speaks of his atten
tion to the pleasures of the table. At least no proof is
forthcoming in favour of this hostile interpretation.

On the other hand, the attempts constantly made by
Luther's supporters to explain away the sensual lusts from
which he tells us he suffered there, and likewise the entice
ments (" titillationes ") which he had admitted even previ
ously to Staupitz his Superior, as nothing more than
worldliness, inordinate love of what is transitory, and
temptations to self-seeking, are certainly somewhat strange.
Why, we may ask, make such futile efforts ?3 Is it in order

1 To Spalatin, January 18, 1518, " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 142.

2 See vol. i., p. 369, n. 1.

" Carnis mece indomitce uror magnis ignibus," in the letter
to Melanchthon, July 13, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 189, where
he also employs the expression, " tentationes carnis." In a letter to
Staupitz, February 20, 1519, " Brief wechsel," 1, p. 431 : " Homo
sum expositus et involutus societati, crapulce, titillationi, negligentice
aliisque molestiis." " Titillatio " is generally used by Luther for

WARTBURG LEGENDS 95

to counteract the exaggerations of Luther's opponents, who,
in popular works, have recently gone so far as, in all good
faith, to declare the " trouble " (" molestice ") of which
Luther complained in his correspondence at that time, was
the result of disease arising from the sins of his youth, though,
from the context, it is clear that the " trouble " in question
was simply a prosaic attack of constipation. L

Luther related later, according to the " Table-Talk,"2 how
the wife of "Hans von Berlips [Bcrlepsch, the warden of the
Wartburg] coming to Eisenach," and " scenting " that he
(Luther) was in the Castle, would have liked to see him ;
but as this was not permitted he had been taken to another
room, while she was lodged in his. Luther mentions this
when alluding to the annoyance from which he complains he
suffered owing to the noisy ghosts of the Wartburg, whom
he took for devils. Two pages, who brought him food and
drink twice a day, were the only human beings allowed to
visit him. He relates that during the night she spent in his
room this woman was likewise disturbed by ghosts : " All
that night there was such a to-do in the room that she
thought a thousand devils were in it." The fact is that
Berlepsch, the Warden of the Castle, was not then married,
wedding Beata von Ebeleben only in 1523.3 Hence we have
here either an anachronism when the visitor to the Wart
burg is spoken of as being already his wife, or a case of
mistaken identity. Luther speaks of the visit quite simply.
The woman's object in calling at the Castle may very well
have been to gratify her feminine curiosity by a sight of
Luther, and to pay a visit to the Warden. The supposition
that the slightest misconduct took place between Luther
and the visitor can only be classed in the category of the
fictitious.

The mention of the diabolical spectres infesting the

sensual temptation, e.g. in the Commentary on Romans (" Schol.
Rom.," p. 133) : " Luxuriosus, dum titillatio venit," etc. ; also in the
tract on the Ten Commandments, " Werke," Weim. ed., 1, pp. 485,
491, 497. In the German version he translates the word by " Kitzel " ;
see, for instance, " Werke," Erl. ed., 34, p. 139.

1 See references below, xiii. 4. The " molestice " in the passage from
the letter to Staupitz (see previous note) are probably of the same
character.

a " Werke," Erl. ed., 59, p. 341.

3 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, 440, 773.

96 THE APOSTASY

Wartburg calls to mind the famous ink-stain on one of the
walls of the Castle.

The tradition is that it was caused by Luther hurling his
inkpot at the devil, who was disputing with him. The
tradition is, however, a legend which probably had its origin
in a murky splash on the wall. In Kostlin and Kawerau's
new biography of Luther this has already been pointed out,
and the fact recalled that in 1712 Peter the Great \vas
shown a similar stain in Luther's room at Wittenberg, not
in the Wartburg, and that Johann Salomo Semler, a well-
known Protestant writer, in his Autobiography published
in 1781, mentions a like stain in the fortress of Coburg where
Luther had tarried. l

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, 440, 773

CHAPTER XIII

THE RISE OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES

1. Against the Fanatics. Congregational Churches?

LUTHER quitted the Wartburg March 1, 1522, after having
previously paid a secret visit to Wittenberg between
December 3 and 11. He now made his appearance at the
birthplace of the Evangel in order to recommence his
vigorous and incisive sermons, which had become im
peratively necessary for his cause.

The action of Carlstadt, even more than that of the
" Prophets of the Kingdom of God," who had come over
from Zwickau, called for his presence in order that he might
resist their attacks. In his absence the Mass had already
been forcibly abolished, sermons had been preached against
confession and infant baptism, and the destruction of the
images had commenced. Like Luther himself, those who
incited the people to these proceedings, appealed on the one
hand to the plain testimony of Holy Scripture as the source
of their inspiration, and on the other to direct illumination
from above.

Infant baptism, argued the Zwickauers, was not taught
in Holy Scripture, but was opposed to the actual words of
the Saviour : " He that believes and is baptised." The
" prophets " met, however, with little encouragement.
Carlstadt had not yet taken their side either in this matter
or in their pseudo-mysticism.

Against the Elector, Carlstadt, however, appealed ex
pressly, as Luther had done, to his duty of proclaiming the
understanding of the Bible which he had been granted.

" Woe to me," he cried with the Apostle St. Paul, " if I

do not preach " (1 Cor. ix. 16). He declared that the

diversions arose merely from the fact that all did not follow

Holy Scripture ; but he, at least, obeyed it and death itself

n.— H 97

98 THE APOSTASY

would not shift him from this firm foundation ; he would
remain " firmly grounded on the Word of God." In demand
ing the removal of the images he cried : " God's voice says
briefly and clearly in Scripture : ' Thou shalt not adore
them nor serve them ' ; and hence it is useless to argue :
' I do not worship the images, I do not honour them for
their own sake, but on account of the Saints whom they
represent.' '

Carlstadt, it is true, also suggested that it was for " the
supreme secular power to decree and effect the removal of
the abuse."1 When occasion arose he also advised "pro
ceeding without causing a tumult and without giving the
foes cause for calumny." That was his advice, 2 but most of
those who thought as he did were little disposed to wait until
the authorities, or the " priests of Baal themselves, removed
their vessels and idols."

The first step towards liturgical change in Wittenberg
was, however, taken by Melanchthon when, September 29,
1521, he and his pupils received the Sacrament in the Parish
Church, the words of institution being spoken aloud and the
cup being passed to the laity, because Christ had so ordained
it. A few days later the Augustinians, particularly Gabriel
Zwilling, commenced active steps against the Mass as a
sacrifice, ceasing to say it any longer. Melanchthon and
the Augustinians knew that in this they had Luther's
sympathy. As those who agreed with Luther followed
Melanchthon's example concerning the Mass and the Supper,
and ceased to take any part in the Catholic Mass, introducing
preachers of their own instead, a new order of Divine worship
was soon the result. " Alongside of the congregation with
the old Popish rites rose the new evangelical community."3
But here Carlstadt stepped forward and gave a new turn to
events ; he was determined not to see the followers of the
Gospel left in a corner, and without delay he set about
altering the principal service at Wittenberg, which was still
celebrated in accordance with Catholic usage, so as to bring
it into agreement with the " institution of Christ." This

1 C. F. Jager, " Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt," 1856, p. 273
Cp. H. Barge, " Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt," 1, 1905, p. 355 ff.

2 Karl Miiller, " Gemeinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther " 1910
p. 29.

3 Idem, " Luther und Karlstadt," 1907, p. 15.

THE ZWICKAU FANATICS 99

new service was first celebrated at Christmas, 1521. Those
portions which express the sacrificial character of the Mass
were omitted, and a new Communion service introduced
instead, the laity partaking of the chalice and the words of
institution being spoken aloud. Confession was not required
of the communicants. The novelty and the ease of receiving
communion attracted crowds to the new ritual, which was
first held in All Saints' Church, then in the parish church,
and was subsequently introduced by his followers, such as
Zwilling, for instance, in the neighbouring parishes.

Great disorders occurred at the very first service of
this sort.

Many communicated after eating and drinking freely. In
January, 1522, a noisy rabble forced its way into the church
at Wittenberg, destroyed all altars, and the statues of the
saints, and cast them, together with the clergy, into the
street.

The Elector and his Councillors, for instance Hieronymus
Schurf, were very angry with the business and with the
" pseudo-prophets," i.e. Carlstadt and his followers ; the
Zwickauers, who, as a matter of fact constituted an even
greater source of danger, held back on this occasion.

Melanchthon, then at Wittenberg, inclined to the belief
that the Zwickauers were possessed by a higher spirit, but
it was, he thought, for Luther to determine the nature of
this spirit. The prophets, on the other hand, argued that
Luther was certainly right in most he said and did, though
not always, and that another, having a higher spirit, would
take his place.

The purer and more profound view of the Evangel upon
which they secretly prided themselves was a consequence of
their eminently reasonable opposition to Luther's altogether
outward doctrine of justification and the state of grace. To
them the idea of a purely mechanical covering over of our
sinfulness by the imputation of Christ's merits, seemed
totally inadequate. They wanted to be in a more living
communion with Christ, and having once seceded from the
Church, they arrived by the path of pseudo-mysticism at
the delusion of a direct intercourse with the other world ;
thereby, however, they brought a danger on the field, viz.
religious radicalism and political revolution. " It seems to
me a very suspicious circumstance," so Luther writes of the

100 THE APOSTASY

Zwickau prophets, " that they should boast of speaking face
to face with the Divine Majesty."1

Luther, after his period of study at the Wartburg, had at
once to define and prove his position, particularly as he
disapproved of much of the doctrines of Carlstadt's party,
as well as of his over-hasty action. Without delay, he
mounted the pulpit at Wittenberg and staked all the
powers of his personality and eloquence against the move
ment ; he was unwilling that the whole work of the Evangel
which had begun should end in chaos. In a course of eight
sermons he traced back the disorders to " a misapprehension
of Christian freedom." It grieved him deeply, he declared,
that, without his order, so much was being altered instead
of proceeding cautiously and allowing the faith to mature
first. " Follow me," he cried, " I have never yet failed ;
I was the first whom God set to work on this plan ; I cannot
escape from God, but must remain so long as it pleases my
Lord God ; I was also the first to whom God gave the
revelation to preach and proclaim this His Word to you.
I am also well assured that you have the pure Word of
God."2

What he says is, however, rather spoilt by a dangerous
admission. " Should there be anyone who has something
better to offer and to whom more has been revealed than to
me, I am ready to submit to him my sense and reason and
not to force my opinion upon him, but to obey him."3 He,
of course, felt that he could convict the so-called " fanatics "
of error, and was sure beforehand that his professed readi
ness to submit to others would not endanger his position.
His whole cause depended on the maintenance of outward
order and his own authority at Wittenberg ; he knew, more
over, that he was backed by the Elector.

His success against his adversaries, who, to tell the truth,
were no match for him, was complete. Wittenberg was
saved from the danger of open adherence to " fanaticism,"
though the movement was still to give Luther much trouble
secretly at Wittenberg and more openly elsewhere, par
ticularly as Carlstadt, in his disappointment, came more

1 On January 13, 1522, " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 271 f. Cp. K. Miiller,
" Luther und Karlstadt," p. 218.

2 " Worke," Weim. ed., 10, 3, p. 8 ; Erl. ed., 28, p. 211 f.

3 Ibid., p. 8-212.

THE "BULL OF REFORMATION" 101

and more after 1522 to make common cause with the
Zwickauers.1

The success of his efforts against the fanatics secured for
Luther the favour of his Ruler and his protection against the
consequences of his outlawry by the Empire. Luther was
thus enabled to carry on his work as professor and preacher
at Wittenberg in defiance of the Emperor and the Empire ;
from thence, till the very end of his life, he was able, un
molested, to spread abroad, with the help of the Press, his
ideas of ecclesiastical revolution.

In view of the movement just described, and of others of
a like nature, he published towrards the close of his Patmos
sojourn the Avork entitled " A True Admonition to all
Spirits to Avoid Riot and Revolt."2 This, however, did not
prevent him shortly after from furthering the idea of the
use of force with all his habitual incautious violence in the
tract " Against the Falsely-called Spiritual Estate of the
Pope and the Bishops" (1522), 3 in which, in language the
effect of which upon the masses it was impossible to gauge,
he incites the people to overthrow the existing Church
government.

" Better were it," he cries in the latter work, " that all bishops
were put to death, and all foundations and convents rooted out,
than that one soul should suffer. What then must we say when
all souls are lost for the sake of vain mummery and idols ? Of
what use are they but to live in pleasure on the sweat and toil of
others and to hinder the Word of God ? " A revolt against such
tyrants could not, he says, be wicked ; its cause would not be
the Word of God, but their own obstinate disobedience and
rebellion against God. " What better do they deserve than to be
stamped out by a great revolt ? Such a thing, should it occur,
would only give cause for laughter, as the Divine Wisdom says,
Proverbs i. 25-26 : ' You have despised all my counsel and
have neglected my reprehensions. I also will laugh in your
destruction.' "*

Expressing similar sentiments, the so-called " Bull of Reforma
tion," comprised in the last-mentioned tract, has it that " all
who assist in any way, or venture life or limb, goods or honour
in the enterprise of destroying bishoprics and exterminating
episcopal rule, are dear children of God and true Christians. . . .

1 Barge, " Karlstadt," 1, p. 405; cp. 402 f.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 670 ff. ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 43 ff.

3 Ibid., 10, 2, p. 93 ff. = 28, p. 141 ff.
* Ibid., p. 111 = 148 f.

102 THE APOSTASY

On the other hand all who hold with the rule of the bishops . . .
are the devil's own servants."1 Such is the teaching of " Eccle-
siastes, by the Grace of God," as Luther calls himself here and
frequently elsewhere. They must listen to him ; the bishops,
for the sake of their idol the Pope, abused, condemned and
consigned to the flames him and his noble cause, refusing either
to listen to or to answer him, but now he will, so he says, " put on
his horns and risk his head for his master," in defiance of the
" idolatrous, licentious, shameless, accursed seducers and
wolves."

As a demolisher Luther proved himself great and strong.
Was he an equally good builder ?

The decisive question of how to proceed to the construction
of a new ecclesiastical system seems to have been scarcely
considered at all by Luther, cither at the Wartburg, or even
for some time after his return. His mind was full of one idea,
viz. how best to fight the Church of Antichrist. He had no
real conception of the Church which might have assisted him
in an attempt to plan out a new system ; his notion of the
Church was altogether too dim and indefinite to serve as
the basis of a new organisation. Even to-day Protestant
theologians and historians are unable to tell us with any
sort of unanimity how his ideas of the Church are to be
understood ; this holds good of him throughout life, but most
of all during the earliest days of Protestantism, when the
first attempts were made to consolidate it.

One of the most recent explorers in the field of the history of
theology in those years, H. Hermelink, concludes a paper on the
subject with the words : " Let us hope that we Protestant
theologians may gradually reach some agreement concerning
Luther's idea of the Church and concerning the Reformer's plans
for the reorganisation of the Church."2

K. Rieker, K. Sohm, W. Kohler, Karl Miiller, P. Drews, Fr.
Loofs and many others who have recently devoted themselves
to these studies which have aroused so much interest in our day,
all differ more or less from each other in their views on the
subject.

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 140 = 178. It has been asserted,
strangely enough, that these words were spoken by Luther hypo-
thetically, i.e. in the event of the Romanists refusing to be converted,
and that the word he uses, and which we have rendered as " destroy
ing," really means something slightly less drastic.

2 H. Hermelink, " Zu Luthers Gedanken uber Idealgemeinden und
von weltlicher Obrigkeit," in " Zeitschr. fur Kirchengesch.," 29,
1908, p. 489; cp. p. 479 ff.

APOCALYPTIC DREAMS 103

The fact must not be forgotten that the Apocalyptic tendency
of Luther's mind at that time prevented his dwelling on matters
of practical organisation. The reign of Antichrist at Rome
seemed to him to portend the end of the world. Apocalyptic
influences oppressed him, particularly in the years 1522 and 1523,
and we find their traces at intervals even afterwards, for instance,
in the years following 1527 and just before his death j1 in each
case they were due to outward and interior " trials." In the first
crisis, at the commencement of the third decade of the sixteenth
century, his false eschatology, based on an erroneous under
standing of the Bible, led him, for instance, to anticipate the
coming of the Last Day in 1524, in consequence of a remarkable
conjunction of the planets which was confidently expected to
bring about a deluge. His sermon on the 2nd Sunday in Advent
fixes the year 1524 as the latest on which this event could occur.2

In his work " To the Nobility on the Improving of the Christian
State," Luther still took it for granted that the Emperor, Princes
and influential laity would forcibly rescue Christendom from the
state of corruption in which it was sunk, and that after Christen
dom had accepted the evangel, the pre-existing order of things
would continue very much as before under a reformed episcopate ;
should the bishops refuse to come over to the Gospel, plenty
" idle parsons " would be found to take their place. As a matter
of fact, he had no clear idea in his mind regarding the future
shaping of affairs.

At the Diet of Worms it became evident that his fantastic
dreams were not to be realised, for the Empire, instead of wel
coming him, proclaimed him an outlaw. Luther, accordingly,
trusting to his mystical ideas, now persuaded himself that his
cause and the reorganisation of Christendom would be under
taken by Christ alone.

In the Wartburg Luther received the fullest and most
definite assurance that the temporal powers who were
opposed to him at Worms would submit themselves in these
latter days to the Word which he preached, and that the
weakening of the Church's authority which had been begun
had not proceeded nearly far enough. It was revealed to
him that his work was yet at its beginning and that there
yet remained to be established new communities of Chris
tians sharing his views. Hence we find him writing to
Frederick, his Elector, on March 7, 1522 : " The spiritual
tyranny has been weakened, to do which has been the sole
aim of my writings ; now I perceive that God wills to carry
it still further as He did with Jerusalem and its twofold

1 H. Preuss, " Die Vorstellungen vom Antichrist," 1906, p. 146.

2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 102, p. 69 : " Der jiingste Tag, welchen sie
[die Constellation] gewisslich bedeutet."

104 THE APOSTASY

government. I have recently learnt that not only the
spiritual but also the temporal power must give way to the
Evangel, willingly or unwillingly ; this is plainly shown in
all the Bible narratives."1 With the Bible in his hand he
seeks to prove, from the passages relating to the end of the
world, and the reign of Antichrist, that, before the end of all,
Christ will overthrow the anti-Christian powers by the
" breath of His mouth."

" It is the mouth of Christ which must do this." " Now
may I and everyone who speaks the word of Christ freely
boast that his mouth is the mouth of Christ." " Another
man, one whom the Papists cannot see, is driving the wheel,
and therefore they attribute it all to us, but they shall yet
be convinced of it."2

Meanwhile some practical action was necessary, for, as
yet, the Evangelicals formed only small groups and un
organised congregations which might at any time drift apart,
whilst elsewhere they were scattered among the masses,
almost unnoticed and utterly powerless. The mere attacking
of Popery was not sufficient to consolidate them. The
" meetings " of those who had been touched by the " Word,"
Gospel-preaching and a new liturgy, did not suffice. The
further growth and permanent organisation of the congrega
tions Luther hoped to see effected by the help of the
authorities, by the Town-councillors, who Avere to play so
great a part later, and, better still, by the Princes whom he
expected to win over to the new teaching as he had already
done in the case of Frederick, the Elector of Saxony. It is true
he would have preferred the setting up of churches to have
been the work of the newly converted Faithful, i.e. to have
taken place from below upwards. Those who had been
converted by the Gospel, " the troubled consciences " as he
calls them, who were united in faith and charity, were ever
to form the nucleus around which he would fain have seen
everywhere the congregations growing, without the inter
vention of the worldly power. The force of circumstances,
however, even from the commencement, compelled him to
fall back on the authorities.

In short, the ideas he advanced concerning organisation

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. Ill (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 298).

2 "Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 683, in the "True Admonition,"
published early in December, 1521.

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 105

were, not only various, but frequently contradictory. His
favourite idea, to which we shall return later, of a com
munity of perfect Christians was utterly incapable of
realisation. " To maintain within the Congregation a more
select company forming a corporation apart was hardly
feasible in the long run."1 At the back of his various plans
was always the persuasion that the power of the Gospel
would in the end do its own work and reveal the right way
for the building up of a new organisation, just as of its own
power it had shattered the edifice of Antichrist. Instead of
searching for the link connecting his discordant utterances,
as Protestant2 theologians have been at pains to do, it will
be more practical and more in accordance with history to
present them here in disconnected groups. For any lack of
clearness which may be the result Luther must be held
responsible.

In one and the same work, shortly after his visit
to Wittenberg from the Wartburg, the destruction of
the Papacy is depicted first as the result of the
action of the governments (who accordingly are bound
to provide a new, even if only temporary, organisa
tion), then as taking place through no human agency
and without a single blow being struck.3 In writing
thus, he was the plaything of those " states of excitement "
which constitute a marked feature of his " religious
psychology." 4 Luther was then aware of the threatening
movement at Wittenberg and elsewhere, and attempted to
stem it with the assurance that the kingdom of Antichrist
was already crumbling to pieces ; he does not, however, omit
to point to the governments as the real agents of which
Christ was to make use to achieve the victory : " Hearken
to the government ; so long as it does not interfere and
give the command, keep your hands, your mouth and your
heart quiet and say and do nothing. But if you are in a
position to move the authorities to intervene and to give
the order, you may do so."5

1 Karl Muller, " Kircho, Gemcinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther,"

2 Cp. K. Muller, ibid., and the authors quoted in the above-men
tioned studies of P. Drews and H. Hermelink.

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 8, pp. 083, 678.

4 Hermelink (p. 297). He thinks the " states of excitement may be
easily accounted for." 6 " Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 680.

106 THE APOSTASY

It would seem from all this as though he expected the help
necessary for the change of faith to come solely from those
in authority, an opinion which he had expressed in his
pamphlet to the nobility, the Princes and the gentry ; the
secular power after making its " submission " to the Evangel
was to do all that was required in the interests of the
Evangel ; it was its duty to see that uniformity prevailed
in the " true worship " throughout its dominions, to watch
over the public services and exclude false worship. But
whether the " Kingdom of God was to be introduced by
the Princes, or to rise up spontaneously from the Christian
Congregation, he docs not clearly state."1 From 1522 to
1525 he frequently speaks as though it were to proceed solely
from the congregation, which by reason of the common
priesthood of its members was possessed of the necessary
qualifications.

In any case, we may gather the following regarding
Church organisation : no outward government, no power or
legislative authority exists in the Church itself ; on earth
there is but one outward authority, viz. the secular ; the
Church lives only by the Word of God and supports and
governs itself by this alone.

If legislation and external authority were called for in the
Church, then this would have to be borrowed from the State, or,
as Rudolf Sohm expresses it : "If legislation and judicial
authority were needed in the Church of Christ, then, according
to Luther's principles, the government of the Church would have
to be set up by the ruler of the land." For, according to Luther,
the authority of the Church is intended merely to foster piety,2
and a spiritual governing authority would result in compulsion
and simply make people " impious." " The ecclesiastical
authority to rule of the parson, i.e. his teaching office, is not a
legal power." In his treatise on canon law, Sohm is one of the
principal supporters of this principle.3 To judge from the
praise bestowed upon him by Hermelink, he had " penetrated
deeply into Luther's thought," and " on the whole saw things in
a right light," although he was possibly too fond of simplifying
them in the interests of a system.4 It is perfectly true that in
Sohm and other Protestant Canonists, the contradictions in
Luther's opinions are left in the background ; Luther's views of
the formation of congregations having their own rights and

1 Hermelink, p. 488 ; cp. p. 322.

" Werke," Weim. ed., 11, p. 251 ff. ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 68 : " The
spiritual government which makes people Christians and holy," etc.

3 " Kirchenrecht," 1892, pp. 528, 633 f.

4 Hermelink, p. 322.

MINISTERS NOT POTENTATES 107

their own authority, which appear side by side with his other
schemes, receive, as a rule, little attention.

In any case, Luther at that time made use of " every artifice
to prove that it was the right of each individual Christian to
judge of the preaching of the Gospel and of the avoiding of false
prophets."1

In those early days Luther was so full of the ideal of the
congregation that, in order to support it, he even appeals to the
natural law. In order to save souls every congregation, govern
ment or individual has by nature the right to make every effort
to drive away the wolves, i.e. the clergy of Antichrist ; no apathy
can be permitted where it is a question of eternal salvation ; the
alleged rights and the handed-down possessions of the foes, or.
which they base their corruptive influence, must not be spared :
" We must not fall upon and seize the temporal possessions of
others, above all not of our superiors — except where it is a
question of doctrine and the salvation of souls ; but if the Gospel
is not preached, the spiritual authorities have no right to the
revenues."2 "According to Luther," says Hermelink, "the
authorities of Altenburg had a perfect right to drive away the
Provost and his people from Altenburg as ravening wolves " ;
they were only to wait " a little " to see whether the monks
would hold their tongues or perhaps even preach the pure Gospel.
When thereupon Luther cries : " Their authority is at an end,
abrogated by God Himself, if it be in conflict with the Gospel,"3
Hermelink admits the presence of a certain " antagonism between
the right of each individual Christian and the common law of
society."

Luther, however, generally prefers to give expression to
other less violent thoughts ancnt the building up of the
congregations to be formed from the Church of Antichrist.

The holy Brotherhood of the Spirit, he says in his ideal
istic way, was to arise, knowing no constraint but only
charity, and having a ministry (" ministcrium "), but no
" power."4 " The freedom of the Spirit which must reign,
makes things which are merely corporal and earthly, in
different and not necessary." "All things arc indifferent
and free (' omnia sunt indifferentia et libera')." "Paul
demands the preservation of unity, but this is unity of the
spirit, not of place, of persons, of things or of bodies."6 We
here again note the advent of that mysticism which had

1 Cp. Luther's Memorandum for the Town Council of Altenburg
(April 28, 1522), " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 347 ff. " For Scripture does
not give to a council but to each individual Christian the authority
to decide on doctrine and discern the wolves," etc.

2 Hermelink, p. 309. 3 " Brief weehsel," 3, p. 349.
* " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 721. 6 Ibid., p. 720.

108 THE APOSTASY

formerly dragged him down to the depths of a passive
indifference. How these pseudo-mystical ideas were to
further the building up of the new ecclesiastical system it
is hard to understand.

The Brotherhood, however, is not intended to introduce
an altogether new ecclesiastical system. We are simply
" Christians," the true Christians, members of the Churches
which have always existed, but purified from a thousand
years of deformation. " To create sects is stupid and
useless";1 according to Luther, it is not even necessary
for the task of uniting under the Christian name, before the
end of the world, all the faithful and the pious consciences
elected from the Kingdom of Antichrist.

At that time he wished all his followers to be known
simply as " Christians " ; and in the first days of the
Protestant Churches he very frequently makes use of this
term.2 Even at a later date he was loath to hear them
called after himself, in spite of his practical action to
the contrary, because they " share with the rest the
common teaching of Christ."3 The term " Evangelicals "
docs not appear to have been much in use in Luther's
immediate surroundings.4 As "Christians" and "Evan
gelicals " they had not left the " Church," indeed, Luther
always insists on the fact that it was they who really
constituted and represented the " Church." According to
the Augsburg Confession in 1530 they belonged to the
Catholic Church ; they wished to define their position
rather as that of a party within the Church, fighting for its
existence, a party which accepted the Church's recognised
articles of belief, sheltered itself under the testimony of
recognised Catholic authorities, and \vhich had merely
introduced certain innovations for the removal of the
abuses which had crept in.5

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, 10, 2, p. 33.

2 Cp. the addresses, " To the Christians at Wittenberg," " To the
Christians at Augsburg," and similar ones to those at Dorpat, in
Flanders, in Holland, in Livonia, at Miltenberg, at Reval, at Riga,
at Worms, at Antwerp, at Bremen, at Reutlingen, at Strasburg, etc.

" Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 685. * Hermelink, p. 298.

5 In this Confession we read that in their teaching there was nothing,
" Quod discrepet a scripturis vel ab ecclesia catholica vel ab ecclesia
romana, quatenus ex scriptoribus nota est" " Corp. Ref.," 26, p. 290.
So runs the address presented to the Emperor, which Melanchthon
afterwards toned down in the 2nd edition. Cp. Kolde, " Die Con-

CHOICE OF PASTORS 109

Although, according to Luther, the inward organisation
of the Brotherhood referred to above was a matter of
indifference, and the approaching end of the world admon
ished him to suffer and wait to see what Christ willed to do
with it, yet we read in other passages of his writings that it
is necessary to work and to make great efforts to provide
every city with a bishop or elder to preach the Gospel ;
" every Christian " is bound to help towards this end, both
by personal exertion and with his goods, and more particu
larly the secular power, the authorities, whose duty it is to
protect the pious. Those who are now already parsons may,
indeed must, at once " withdraw from their obedience,
seeing that they promised obedience to the devil and not
to God."1

This is certainly " something more than passive suffering
and waiting for the end."2

The apostasy of the clergy, which had begun, made the
question of definite, external organisation a pressing one,
for the new preachers and the clergy who were coming over
had, after all, to be responsible to someone and had also to
be maintained ; it was also necessary that they and their
followers should receive external recognition for their
Churches and extricate themselves from the numerous ties
which united so closely the spiritual with the secular in
Catholic life. The appointment of pastors and the repre
sentation of the faithful by them was one of the factors
which called for further organisation of the Churches :
another factor, as we may notice in the case of Wittenberg,
was the manner of celebrating the Supper. It was, as a
matter of fact, the trouble at Wittenberg under Carlstadt
which impelled Luther to take into serious consideration the
establishment of an independent ecclesiastical organisation
in that town, and which called for a definite system of
appointing the Lutheran pastors even elsewhere, so as to

fessio Augustana," p. 11. Kawerau (Holler's " Kirchengeschichte/'
3, vol. iii., 1907, p. 108) also quotes the Protestant declaration of 154G
(" Corp. Ref.," 6, p. 35) : " Nostri affirmant . . . confessionis Angus-
tance doctrinam . . . esse consensum catholicce ecclesioe Dei," and the
Wittenberg Ordination -papers that the person in question " tenet
puram doctrinam evangelii quam catholica ecclesia Christi profttetur et
nos in ecclesia nostra docemus" (" Luthers Brief wechsel," 11, 278;
October 7, 1537).

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, pp. 140, 143, 144, 139, 110.

* Hermelink, p. 302.

110 THE APOSTASY

prevent Carlstadt's followers from getting the upper hand
throughout the country.

After Luther had set aside Carlstadt's innovations at
Wittenberg, with the approval of the Elector who had for
bidden them, he appointed the celebration of the Supper for
those of the new faith at Wittenberg on the lines previously
followed by Melanchthon ; the communion became the
principal part of the ceremony, the offertory was omitted
and the words of consecration were spoken aloud either
with or without certain of the prayers of the Mass. Thus
the abuses introduced by Carlstadt were, in his opinion,
removed, and the swarms of worldly minded and fanatical
nominal Christians, " Christian in name but almost heathen
at heart," were no longer brought in contact with the true
Evangelicals ; the employment of force towards those weak
in the faith, whose convictions Luther did not consider ripe
for the purely congregational ritual of Carlstadt, was also
put an end to. All the external forms which had been
introduced, and to which, Luther feared, the people would
have clung in an unevangelical fashion as had formerly been
the case in Popery, were removed.

In order more particularly to avoid any compromising
abuse of the Sacrament of the Altar, Luther sought to
establish a Christian congregation in which confession should
exist, though not as a compulsory practice, and in which a
certain supervision was exercised.

In order to proceed cautiously and in accordance with the
Elector's ideas, he refrained from directing the bestowal of
the chalice in the order of Divine Service drawn up for the
use of his followers ; at any rate, this was the case at Easter,
1522, though in the autumn of that same year the chalice
was again in general use.1 In spite of this, up to 1523, a
special form of communion with the cup was in use for
true Evangelical believers, who were subject to a special
form of supervision. This arrangement agreed with Luther's
idea of an " Assembly of true Christians," on which he was to
enlarge in 1523 in his Maundy-Thursday sermon (see below).
The special communion was, it is true, speedily abandoned,
but the idea of the select Assembly ever remained dear to him . 2

1 K. Miiller, " Kirche, Gemeinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther,"
p. 33, n. 3, where stress is rightly laid on the testimony of Sebastian
Froschel. 2 Cp. Miiller, ibid., p. 34.

CHOICE OF PASTORS 111

The other factor which called even more urgently for
internal organisation was the appointment of pastors.

The induction of new pastors could not well take place
independently of the authorities, indeed, it imperatively
demanded their co-operation. At Wittenberg the later
alteration in the liturgy and the final prohibition of the
Mass, after it had been insisted on by Luther, was carried
out by a threatening mob with the connivance of the
Government.1 Yet, in spite of the impossibility of dis
pensing with the secular power, until 1525, Luther was for
various reasons more inclined to the Congregational ideal,
which was less subject to Government interference.

This congregational ideal tended to promote his plan of
an " Assembly of true Christians."

In the newly erected congregations the " true believers,"
according to what Luther repeatedly says, formed the
nucleus. It is to these that he appeals in his instructions
in 1523 (" Us qui credunt, hcec scribimus ") ; " those whose
hearts God has touched are to meet together," so he says,
in order to choose a " bishop," i.e. " a minister or pastor."
Even though the congregation numbers only half a dozen,
yet they will draw after them others " who have not yet
received the Word " ; the half a dozen, though but a
handful and perhaps not distinguished by piety, so long as
they do not live as obstinate and open sinners, are the real
representatives of the true Church at their home. They
must also rest assured, that if in their choice they have
prayed to God for enlightenment, they " will be moved, and
not act of themselves (4 vos agi in hoc causa, non agere')."
" That Christ acts through them is quite certain (' plane
certum')"z "Hence even a small minority of the truly
pious among the congregation possess not only the right
but also the duty to act ; for to stand by and let things
take their course is contrary to the faith."3 The election

1 See below, xiv. 5, and vol. iv., xxviii. 6.

2 " De instituendis ministris ecclesice, senatui populoque Pragensi,"
1523. " Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 194 f. ; " Opp. Lat. var.," G,
p. 530 seq. It follows from the context of the passage quoted above
that Luther's assurance is intended to be their guarantee that they are
acting in God's name, and are not themselves taking the initiative,
but submitting to be led. Cp. letter to the Bohemian Estates (1522),
Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 172 ff. ; Erl. ed., 53, p. 144 ff.

3 Paul ^Drews (" Entsprach das Staatskirchentum dem Ideale
Luthers ? " p. 36), in the examination of the instruction mentioned
in the previous note.

112 THE APOSTASY

derives its " true validity solely from the half-dozen."1 Of
any election by the remaining members of the congregation
or of any action of the magistracy Luther says nothing
whatever ; he is speaking only to those within the body of
the congregation whose hearts God has touched.

The above thoughts find their first expression in the writing
" De instituendis ministris ecclesice," which Luther sent to the
Utraquists or Calixtines of Prague.2

The Utraquists of Bohemia acknowledged the Primacy of the
Holy See and obeyed the Catholic Hierarchy, though certain
Lutheran tendencies prevailed amongst them, which, however,
had been grossly exaggerated by Cahera, who informed Luther of
the fact ; Cahera even represented the greater part of the Council
of Prague as predisposed in Luther's favour, which was certainly
not true. In instructing the burghers, and more particularly
the Council of Prague, how to proceed in founding congregations
of their own by means of elections, Luther was also thinking of
Germany, and above all of Saxony. This explains why, without
delay, he had the Latin writing published also in German.

To the people of Prague he wrote that those whose hearts
God had touched were to assemble in the city for the election.
They were first to remind themselves in prayer that the Lord had
promised that where two or three were gathered together in His
name, there He would be in the midst of them ; then they were
to select capable persons for the clerical state and the ministry
of the Word, who were then to officiate in the name of all ; these
were then to lay their hands on the best amongst them (" potiores
inter vo$ "), thus confirming them, after which they might be
presented to " the people and the Church or congregation as
bishops, servants or pastors, Amen." " It all depends on your
making the venture in the Lord, then the Lord will be with you."
In the congregations scattered throughout the land the faithful
were to proceed in like manner, firing others by their example ;
if they were few in number, there wras all the more reason why
they should make the venture. But as all was to be done spon
taneously and under the influence of the Spirit of God, such
Councils as were favourably disposed were not to exercise any
constraint. He, too, for his own part, merely gave " advice and

1 Thus Hermelink (p. 483), though he does not find the congrega
tional principle so decidedly expressed in Luther's writings as Drews
does. Luther's statements in the years 1522-1525 concerning the
establishment of new congregations are certainly not at all clear, as
Karl Miiller admits (" Luther und Karlstadt," " Luthers Gedanken
iiber den Aufbau der neuen Gemeinden," p. 121). Cp. concerning the
existence of Luther's congregational ideal, " Kirche, Gemeinde," usw.,
p. 40 ff.

2 Above, p. Ill, n. 2. The writing is addressed to the Council and
the inhabitants collectively (" senatus populusque "). Yet in certain
passages the Council alone is addressed.

THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION 113

exhortation."1 Where a large number of congregations had
appointed their " ministers " in this way, then these latter
might, if they so desired, meet to elect Superintendents who
would make the visitation of their Churches, " until Bohemia
finally returns to the legitimate and evangelical Archiepiscopate,"

At about that same time, in a writing intended for the congre
gation at Leisnig, Luther expressed his views on the congrega
tional Churches to be established by the people. The confusion
of his mind is no less apparent in this work ; under the influence
of his idealism he fails to perceive the endless practical difficulties
inherent in his scheme, and above all the impossibility of
establishing any real congregation when every member had a
right to criticise the preacher and to interpret Scripture accord
ing to his own mind.2

He here assumes that the liberty to preach the Word, and
likewise the right of judging doctrines, is part of the common
priesthood of Christians. Whoever preaches publicly can only
do this " as the deputy and minister of the others," i.e. of the
whole body.3 The congregation must see that no one seduces
them with the doctrines of men, and therefore no one may be a
preacher except by their choice. Where there is no bishop to
provide for them, who holds Christian and evangelical views,
they are themselves to give the call to the right preacher ; but
if they catch him erring in his doctrine, then anyone may get up
and correct him, so long as " all done is done decently and in
order."4 For St. Paul says concerning those who speak during
Divine Worship [St. Paul is really alluding to the charismata of
the early Christians], " If anything be revealed to another sitting,
let the first hold his peace " (1 Cor. xiv. 30). " Indeed, a Christian
has such authority that he might well rise up and teach uncalled
even in the midst of the Christians. . . . For this reason, that
necessity knows no law." Therefore to preserve the purity of
the evangelical teaching, " every man may come forward, stand
up and teach, to the best of his ability."5

The experience with the fanatics which speedily followed was
calculated to dispel such platonic ideas. Luther does not appear
to have asked himself on which side the " Christian congregation "
and the Church was to be sought when dissensions, doctrinal or
other, at that period inevitable, should have riven the fold in
twain. The " Christian congregation " he teaches — merely re
stating the difficulty — " is most surely to be recognised where
the pure Gospel is preached. . . . From the Gospel we may tell
where Christ stands with His army."6

1 In the Preface : " Nequaquam esse possum autor quidquam ten-
tandi, nisi per consilium et exhortationem."

2 The title of the work describes it well : " The Scriptural ground
and reason why a Christian congregation or assembly has the right and
power to pass judgment on all doctrines, to call, appoint, or remove
pastors," 1523. " Werke," Weim. ed., 11, p. 401 ff. ; Erl. ed., 22,
p. 140 ff. 3 Ibid., p. 412-147. 4 Ibid.

6 Ibid., pp. 412, 413, 414=147, 148, 149.
6 Ibid., p. 408 = 141
II. — i

114 THE APOSTASY

How bold the edifice was which he had planned in the evan
gelical Churches is plain from other statements contained in the
writing addressed to the Leisnig Assembly.

The president was indeed to preside, but all the members were
to rule. " Whoever is chosen for the office of preacher is thereby
raised to the most exalted office in Christendom ; he is then
authorised to baptise, to say Mass and to hold the cure of souls."1
Yet he is subject both to the community and to every member
of it. " In the world the masters command what they please
and their servants obey. But amongst you, Christ says, it shall
not be so ; amongst Christians each one is judge of the other,
and in his turn subject to the rest."2

He might say what he pleased against the abuses of the
old Church, such systematic disorder never prevailed within
her as that each one should teach as he pleased and even
correct the preacher publicly, or that the Demos should be
acknowledged as supreme. It is in vain that, in the writing
above referred to, he mocks at this city set on a hill, with
her firmly established hierarchy, saying : " Bishops and
Councils determine and settle what they please, but where
we have God's Word on our side it is for us to decide what is
right or wrong and not for them, and they shall yield to us
and obey our word."3 We may well explain the saying " to
obey our word " by Luther's own eloquent paraphrase :
" Pay no heed to the commandments of men, law, tradition,
custom, usage and so forth, whether established by Pope or
Emperor, Prince or Bishop, whether observed by half the
world or by the whole, whether in force for one year or for a
thousand ! " " Obey our word ! " For we declare that we
have the " Word of God on our side."4

The new congregations will, in spite of their own and every
member's freedom to teach, agree with Luther, so he assures
them with the most astounding confidence, because " his
mouth is the mouth of Christ," and because he knows that
his word is not his, but Christ's. We must emphasise the
fact, that here we have the key to many of the strange
trains of thought already met with in Luther, and also a
proof of the endurance of his unpractical ultra-spiritualism.

Luther, in fact, declares that he had " not merely received
his teaching from heaven, but on behalf of one who had

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 11, p. 415 f. = 151.

2 Ibid., p. 410 = 145.

3 Ibid., p. 409f. = 143f. * Ibid., p. 408f. = 142.

CELIBACY AND VOWS 115

more power in his little finger than a thousand popes, kings,
princes and doctors."1 Before receiving his enlightenment
he had had to learn what was meant by being " born of
God, dying often and surviving the pains of hell."2 Who
ever differed from him, as the fanatics did, had not been
through such an experience. " Wouldst thou know where,
when and how we arc vouchsafed the divine communica
tions ? When that which is written takes place : ' As a
lion, so hath He broken all my bones ' (Isa. xxxviii. 13). . . .
God's Majesty cannot speak in confidence with the old man
without previously slaying. . . . The dreams and visions
of the saints are dreadful."3 Such was the mysticism of the
Wartburg.

2. Against Celibacy. Doubtful Auxiliaries from the
Clergy and the Convents

In establishing his new ecclesiastical organisation Luther
thought it his duty to wage war relentlessly on the celibacy
of the clergy and on monastic vows in general. Was he more
successful herein than in his project of reforming the articles
of faith and the structure of the Church ?

According to Catholic ideas his war against vows and
sacerdotal celibacy constituted an unwarrantable and
sacrilegious interference with the most sacred promises by
which a man can bind himself to the Almighty, for it is in
this light that a Catholic considers vows or the voluntary
acceptance of celibacy upon receipt of the major orders.
Luther was, moreover, tampering with institutions which
are most closely bound up with the life of the Church and
which alone render possible the observance of that high
standard of life and that independence which should dis
tinguish the clergy. Yet his mistaken principles served to
attract to his camp all the frivolous elements among the
clergy and religious, i.e. all those who were dissatisfied with
their state and longed for a life of freedom. As a matter of
fact, experience speedily showed that nothing was more

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 228 = 28, p. 346, in his reply to
King Henry VIII " of Engelland " (1522).

2 To Melanchthon, January 13, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 272 f. :
" Veniam ad prophetas. . . . Explores ctiam, num experti sint spirit-
uales Mas anyustias et nativitates divinas, mortes infernosque."

3 Ibid., 3, p. 273.

116 THE APOSTASY

calculated to bring the Reformation into disrepute.
Lutheranism threw open the doors of the convents, burst
the bonds imposed by vows, and reduced hundreds of the
clergy to a moral debasement against which their own
conscience raised a protest. In outward appearance it was
thereby the gainer, for by this means it secured new
adherents in the shape of preachers to spread the cause, but
in reality the positive gain was nil; in fact, the most vital
interests of the new work were endangered owing to the low
moral standard of so many of its advocates. Apart from
the preachers, many followers of the new Evangelical teach
ing, fugitive religious and more especially escaped nuns,
played a very lamentable part.

In various writings and letters Luther sought to familiar
ise the clergy and monks with the seductive principles con
tained in his books " On the Clerical State " and " On
Monastic Vows." His assurances all went to prove that the
observance of priestly celibacy and the monastic state was
impossible. He forgot wrhat he had once learnt and cheer
fully practised, viz. that the sexual renunciation demanded
in both professions was not merely possible, but a sacrifice
willingly offered to God by all who are diligent in prayer and
make use of the means necessary for preserving their virtue,
and the numerous spiritual helps afforded by their state.

The powerful and seductive language he knows how to
employ appears, for instance, in his letter to Wolfgang
Reissenbusch, an Antonine monk, 1 who was already waver
ing, and in whose case Luther's strenuous efforts were
crowned with success. The letter, which is dated March 27,
1525, was written shortly before Luther's union with
Catharine von Bora.

The writer in the very first lines takes pains to convince this
religious, that " he had been created by God for the married
state and was forced and impelled by Him thereto." The religious
vow was worthless, because it required what was impossible, since
" chastity is as little within our power as the working of miracles ";
man was utterly unable to resist his natural attraction to woman ;
" whoever wishes to remain single let him put away his human
name and fashion himself into an angel or a spirit, for to a man
God does not give this grace."

1 To Wolfgang Reissenbusch, Preceptor at Lichtenberg, " Werke,"
Weim. ed., 18, p. 270-9 ; Erl. ed., 53, p. 286 ff. (" Briefwechsel," 5,
p. 145).

A DEVIL'S INVENTION 117

Elsewhere Luther, nevertheless, admits that some few by the
help of God were able to live unmarried and chaste. In view of
the sublime figures to be found in the history of the Church, and
which it was impossible to impeach, he declares that " it is rightly
said of the holy virgins that they lived an angelical and not a
human life, and that by the grace of the Almighty they lived
indeed in the flesh yet not according to it."

He proceeds to heap up imaginary objections against the vow
of chastity, saying that whoever makes such a vow is building
" upon works and not solely on the grace of God " ; trusting to
" works and the law " and denying " Christ and the faith."
In the case of Reissenbusch, the only obstacle lay in his " bash-
fulness and diffidence." " Therefore there is all the more need
to keep you up to it, to exhort, drive and urge you and so render
you bold. Now, my dear Sir, I ask of you, why delay and think
about it so long, etc. ? It is so, must be and ever shall be so !
Pocket your scruples and be a man cheerfully. Your body
demands and needs it. God wills it and forces you to it. How
are you to set that aside ? " He points out to the wavering
monk the "noble and excellent example which he will give" ;
he will become the " cloak of marriage " to many others. " Did not
Christ become the covering of our shame ? . . . Among the raving
madmen [the Papists], it is accounted a shameful thing, and
though they do not make any difficulty about fornication they
nevertheless scoff at the married state, the work and Word of God.
If it is a shameful thing to take a wife, then why are we not
ashamed to eat and drink, since both are equally necessary and
God wills both ? " Thus he attributes to the Catholics, at least
in his rhetorical outbursts, the view that it was a " shameful tiling
to take a wife," and accuses them of scoffing at the " married
state," and of " not objecting to fornication." He did not see
that if anyone strives to observe chastity in accordance with the
Counsel of Christ without breaking his word and perjuring
himself, this constancy is far from being a disgrace, but that the
disgrace falls rather on him who endeavours to entice the monk
to forsake his vows.

" The devil is the ruler of the world," Luther continues. " He
it is who has caused the married state to be so shamefully calum
niated and yet permits adulterers, feminine whores and mas
culine scamps to be held in great honour ; verily it would be
right to marry, were it only to bid defiance to the devil and his
world."

In the closing sentence he aims his last bolt at the monk's
sense of honour : " It is merely a question of one little hour of
shame to be succeeded by years of honour. May Christ, our Lord,
impart His grace so that this letter . . . may bring forth fruit
to the glory of His name and word, Amen."

The letter was not intended merely for the unimportant
person to whom it was addressed, and whose subsequent marriage
with the daughter of a poor tailor's widow in Torgau did not
render him any the more famous. Publicity was the object

118 THE APOSTASY

aimed at in this writing, which was at once printed in German
and Latin and distributed that it might " bear fruit." The
lengthier " Epistola cjratulatoria to one about to marry," im
mediately reprinted in German, was despatched by Luther's
Wittenberg friend Bugenhagen at the time of Reissenbusch's
wedding. It had been agreed upon to utilise the action of Reis-
senbusch for all it was worth in the propaganda in favour of
the breaking of vows and priestly celibacy.

Luther was then in the habit of employing the strongest
and most extravagant language in order to show the need
of marriage in opposition to the celibacy practised by the
priests and monks. It is only with repulsion that one can
follow him here.

"It is quite true," he says, in 1522, to the German people,
" that whoever does not marry must misconduct himself . . .
for God created man and woman to be fruitful and multiply.
But why is not fornication obviated by marriage ? For where
no extraordinary grace is vouchsafed, nature must needs be
fruitful and multiply, and if not in marriage, where will it find
its satisfaction save in harlotry or even worse sins ? "' Luther
carefully refrained from mentioning the countless number who
were able to control the impulses of nature without in any way
touching the moral filth to which, in his cynicism, he is so fond of
referring. What he said filled with indignation those who were
zealous for the Church, and called forth angry rejoinders, especi
ally in view of the countless numbers, particularly of women,
to whom marriage was denied owing to social conditions.

It is true that after such strong outbursts as the above, Luther
would often moderate his language. Thus he says, shortly after
the utterance just quoted : " I do not wish to disparage vir
ginity nor to tempt people away from it to the conjugal state.
Let each one do as he is able and as he feels God has ordained for
him. . . . The state of chastity is probably better on earth as
having less of trouble and care, and not for its own sake only,
but in order to allow one to preach and wait upon the Word of
God, as St Paul says 1 Corinthians vii. 34. "2

But then he continues, following up the idea which possesses
him : " He who desires to live single undertakes an impossible
struggle " ; such people become " full of harlotry and all impurity
of the flesh, and at last drown themselves therein and fall into
despair ; therefore such a vow is invalid, being contrary to the
WTorcl arid work of God."3 Most of the younger religious, he de
clares elsewhere in a description which is as repulsive as it is
untrue, were unable to control themselves, for it is not possible
to take from fire its power of burning ; among them, and the

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 300 ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 537 f.

2 Ibid., p. 302 = 539.

3 In the letter to Reissenbusch ; see above, p. 116, n. 1.

A DEVIL'S INVENTION 119

clergy, there prevailed " either harlotry under the name of a
spiritual and chaste life, or an impure, unwilling, wretched, forlorn
chastity, so that the wretchedness is greater than anyone could
believe or tell."1

What Luther says would leave us under the impression — to put
the most charitable interpretation upon his words — that he had
lived in sad surroundings ; yet what we know of the Augustinian
monasteries at Erfurt and Wittenberg affords as little ground for
such an assumption as the conditions prevailing in the other
friaries, whether Franciscan or Dominican, with which he was
acquainted. He speaks again and again as though he knew
nothing of the satisfaction with their profession which filled
whole multitudes who were faithful to their vows, and which
was the result of serious discipline and a devout mind. He
goes on : " They extol chastity loudly, but live in the midst of
impurity. . . . These pious foundations and convents, where the
faith [according to his teaching] is not practised stoutly and
heartily,"2 must surely be gates of hell. Those who refrain from
marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven are, he considers,
" so rare, that among a thousand men there is scarcely to be
found one, for they are a special miracle of God's own."3 He
who enters a monastery, he writes (not in the least afraid of
speaking as though this had been his own experience), can, in
reality, never avoid sinning against his vow. The Pope leaves
such a one to be, as it were, burnt and roasted in the fire ; he
accordingly might well be compared to the sacrifice which the
children of Israel offered to Moloch the fiery idol. " What a
Sodom and Gomorrha," he cries in another passage, " has the
devil set up by such laws and vows, making of that rare gift
chastity a thing of utter wretchedness. Neither public houses
of ill fame, nor indeed any form of allurement to vice, is so perni
cious as are these vows and commandments invented by Satan
himself."4 Such are his words in his " Postils," written for
genera], practical use.

His " larger Catechism " was also used as a means to render
popular his most extravagant polemics on this subject. The
sixth Commandment makes of chastity a duty, and Christ's
counsel of voluntary continence was to serve for the preserving
and honouring of this very command. Yet Luther says : "By
this commandment all vows of unmarried chastity are condemned,
and all poor, enslaved consciences which have been deceived by
their monastic vows are thereby permitted, nay ordered, to pass
from the unchaste to the conjugal state, seeing that even though
the monastic life were in other particulars divine, it is not in their
power to preserve their chastity intact."5 Thus "the married

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 127 ; Erl. ed., 28, p. 165. Against
the clerical state falsely so called.

2 Ibid., p. 130= 165 se?.

3 Ibid., p. 279 = 162, p. 514 f. " Sermon on the married life, 1522.

4 Ibid., 10, 1, 1, pp. 693, 708 = 12, p. 451, 465, "Postils."

5 " Werke," Erl. ed., 21, p. 71.

120 THE APOSTASY

j

state " is, at least, according to this passage, prescribed for all
without exception in the Ten Commandments.

Still further to strengthen his seductive appeals to the
clergy and religious, Luther, as he himself informs us,
advised those who were unable to marry openly " at least
to wed their cook secretly."1

To the Prince-Abbots he gave the advice that on account
of the laws of the Empire they should, for the time being,
" take a wife in secret," " until God, the Lord, shall dispose
matters otherwise." In 1523 he advised all the Knights of
the Teutonic Order, who were vowed to chastity, " not to
worry " about their " weakness and sin " even though they
had contracted some " illicit connections " ; such connections
contracted outside of matrimony were " less sinful " than to
" take a lawful wife " with the consent of a Council, suppos
ing such a permission were given.2 This last letter, too, was
at once printed by Luther for distribution.3

His spirit of defiance led him to clothe his demands in
outrageous forms. On one occasion he declared in language
resembling that which he made use of concerning the laws of
fasting : " Even though a man has no mind to take a wife
he ought, nevertheless, to do so in order to spite and vex the
devil and his doctrine."4

The Fathers of the Church accordingly found little favour
with him when they required of the clergy, monks and nuns,
not merely the observance of celibacy, but also the use of
the means enjoined by asceticism for the preservation of
chastity ; or when they betrayed their preference for the
vow of chastity, though without by any means disparaging
marriage. They quoted what Our Lord had said of this
doctrine : " He that can take it, let him take it " (Matt,
xix. 12). The Fathers, in the spirit of St. Paul, who, as one
"having obtained mercy of the Lord," joyfully acquiesced
in His " Counsel " of chastity (1 Cor. vii. 25), frequently
advocated the doctrine of holy continence. But Luther
asks : Of what use were their penitential practices for the
preservation of their chastity to the Fathers, even to

1 Letter of April or June, 1540, to the Elector of Saxony, quoted by
J. K. Seidemann in " Lauterbachs Tagebuch," 1872, p. 198.

2 See below.

3 Cp. Enders, " Briefwechsel Luthers," 4, p. 266 f.

4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 556.

CHILDISHNESS OF OLDEN FATHERS 121

Augustine, Jerome, Benedict, Bernard, etc., since they
themselves allow that they were constantly troubled by
temptations of the flesh ? In his opinion, as we already
know, the attacks of sensuality, the movements of the
carnal man and the enduring sense of our own concupiscence
are really sins.

Jerome in particular, the zealous advocate of virginity,
received at Luther's hands the roughest treatment. This
saint is erroneously reckoned among the Fathers of the
Church ; he is of no account at all except for the histories
he compiled ; he was madly in love with the virgin Eusto-
chium ; his writings give no proof of faith or true religion ;
he had not the least idea of the difference between the law
and the Gospel, and writes of it as a blind man might write
of colour, etc. His invitations to the monastic life are
described by Luther as impious, unbelieving and sacri
legious. Scoffing at the Saint's humble admission of his
temptations in his old age and the severe mortifications he
practised to overcome them, Luther says : The virgin Eusto-
chium would have been the proper remedy for him. " I am
astounded that the holy Fathers tormented themselves so
greatly about such childish temptations and never experi
enced the exalted, spiritual trials [those regarding faith],
seeing that they were rulers in the Church and filled high
offices. This temptation of evil passions may easily be
remedied if there are only virgins or women available,"1

All these fell doctrines and allurements which without
intermission were poured into the ears of clergy and religious
alike, many of wThom were uneducated, already tainted with
worldlincss, or had entered upon their profession without
due earnestness, were productive of the expected result in
the case of the weak. The sudden force of Luther's powerful
and well-calculated attack upon the clergy and upon
monasticism has been aptly compared to the effect of
dynamite. But whoever fell, did so of his own free will.
Such language was nothing but the bewitching song of the
Siren addressed to the basest though most powerful instincts
of man.

The historic importance of the attack upon ecclesiastical
celibacy is by no means fully gauged if we merely regard it

1 "Werke," Erl. ed., 61, p. 262 (" Tischreden "). Cp. " Colloq.,"
ed. Bindseil, 2, pp. 315, 364 ; 3, p. 149.

122 THE APOSTASY

as an effective method of securing preachers, allies and
patrons for the new Evangel. It was, indeed, closely bound
up with Luther's whole system, and his early theories on
holiness by works and self-righteousness. His war on vows
was too spontaneous, too closely connected with his own
personal experience, to be accounted for merely by the
desire of increasing the number of his followers. The
aversion to the practice of good works Avhich marked the
commencement of his growth, his loathing for the sacrifices
entailed by self-denial, the very stress he lays on the desires
of nature as opposed to the promptings of grace, the delusion
of evangelical freedom and finally his hatred of those
institutions of the old Church which inspired her adherents
with such vigorous life wherever they were rightly under
stood and practised— all this served as an incentive in the
struggle.

A strange element which, according to his own statements,
formed an undercurrent to all this and which indicates his
peculiar state of mind, was that he looked upon the tempta
tions of the flesh as something altogether insignificant in
comparison with the exalted spiritual assaults of " blas
phemy and despair " of which he had had personal experi
ence.1 In the passage already referred to, wiierc he chides
the Fathers with their " childish temptations," he says :
Why on earth did they make such efforts for the preserva
tion of their beloved chastity, or exert themselves for
something entirely, or almost entirely, impossible of
attainment ? The temptations of the flesh are nothing at
all, he proceeds, " compared with the Angel of Satan who
buffets us ; then indeed we are nailed to the cross, then
indeed childish things such as the temptations which
worried Jerome and others become of small account." In
Paul's case, according to him, the " angclus colaphizans "
(the ,angel who buffeted him, 2 Cor. xii. 7) was not a sting
of the flesh at all, but exalted pangs of the soul, such as
those to which the Psalmist alluded when he said : " God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? " where he really
means : " God, Thou art become my enemy without a
cause," or again, that a sword has pierced his bowels (pains
of the soul). He himself, Luther, had endured such-like

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 61, p. 262.

STRICTURES ON RUNAWAY MONKS 123

things, but " Jerome and the other Fathers never experi
enced anything of the sort."1

Luther complains as early as 1522, i.e. at the very outset
of this "Evangelical" movement, of the character of the
auxiliaries who had been attracted to him by his attack on
priestly and monastic continence.

In a letter sent to Erfurt he expresses his great dissatisfaction
at the fact that, where apostate Augustinians had become
pastors, their behaviour, like that of the other preachers drawn
from the ranks of the priesthood, had " given occasion to their
adversaries to blaspheme " against the evangel. He says he
intends sending a circular letter to the " Church at Erfurt "
on account of the bad example given.- The person to whom
these bitter words were addressed, Luther's intimate friend,
Johann Lang, the Erfurt Augustinian, had himself shortly before
forsaken the monastery. The circumstances attending his leav
ing were very distasteful to Luther.

The evangelical life at Erfurt, where many of the priests \vere
taking wives, must be improved, so he writeSj even though the
" understanding of the Word " had increased greatly there.
" The power of the Word is either still hidden " he says, of the
new evangel, " or it is far too weak in us all ; for we are the same
as before, hard, unfeeling, impatient, foolhardy, drunken, disso
lute, quarrelsome ; in short, the mark of a Christian, viz. abun
dant charity, is nowhere apparent ; on the contrary, the words of
Paul are fulfilled, ' we possess the kingdom of God in speech,
but not in power' " (1 Cor. iv. 20). 3 In the same letter he com
plains of the monks who had left their convents to reinforce the
ranks of his party : " I see that many of our monks have left
their priory for no other reason than that which brought them in :
they follow their bellies and the freedom of the flesh. By them
Satan will set up a great stench against the good odour of our
work. But what can we do ? They are idle people who seek
their own, so that it is better they should sin and go to destruc
tion without the cowl than with it."

Luther complained still more definitely of his " parsons and
preachers " in the Preface to the " Larger Catechism " which he
composed for them in 1529 : Many, he says, despise their office
and good doctrine : some simply treated the matter as though
they had become " parsons and preachers solely for their belly's
sake" ; he would exhort such " lazy paunches or presumptuous
saints " to diligence in their office.4 What he had predicted in
1522 became more and more plainly fulfilled : " It is true that

1 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 2, p. 315.

2 To Johann Lang at Erfurt, March 28, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 3,
p. 323 seq.

3 Ibid., p. 323. * " Werke," Erl. ed., 21, p. 26 ff.

124 THE APOSTASY

I fear some will take wives or run away, not from Christian con
viction, but because they rejoice to find a cloak and reason for
their wickedness in the freedom of the evangel." His consola
tion, however, is, that it was just as bad and even worse in
Popery, and if needs be " we still have the gallows, the wheel,
sword and water to deal with such as will not do what is right."1

In later years, as his pupil Mathesius relates in the
" Ilistorien " of his conversations with him, Luther was
anxious to induce the Elector to erect a " Priests' Tower "
" in which such wild and untamed persons might be shut up
as in a prison ; for many of them would not allow them
selves to be controlled by the Evangel ; ... all who once
had run to the monasteries for the sake of their belly and an
easy life were now running out again for the sake of the
freedom of the flesh."2 According to Lauterbaeh's " Tagc-
buch," however (15138), the Elector had before this decided
to rebuild the University prison as a jail for such of the
clergy of Luther's camp who misbehaved themselves,3 and
the Notes of Mathesius recently edited by Krokcr allow us
to infer that the prison had already been built in 1540.4
Thus the account given by Mathesius in the " Ilistorien "
and quoted by him in sermons at a later date must be
amended and amplified accordingly.

Even Luther's own followers looked askance at many of
the recruits from the clergy and the monasteries, who came
to swell the ranks of the preachers and adherents of the
new Evangel. We are in possession of statements on this
subject made by Eberlin, Ilessus and Cordus.

" Scarcely has a monk or nun been three days out of the
convent," writes Eberlin of (junzburg, " than they make haste
to marry some woman or knave from the streets, without any
godly counsel or prayer ; in the same way the parsons too take
whom they please, arid then, after a short honeymoon, follows
a long year of trouble."6

Eobanus Hessus, the Humanist, writes in 1523 from Erfurt to
J. Draco that the runaway monks neglected education and
learning and preached their own stupidities as wisdom ; the

1 "Werko," Wcim. od., 10, 2, p. 35; Erl. ed., 28, p. 311, in the
tract " Concerning the Sacrament under both kinds."

2 Mathesius, " Historien," 15G6, 11. Sermon 136'.

3 " Lauterbachs Tagobuch," p. 13.

4 Mathesius, " Tischreden," ed. Krokor, p. 72 f.

6 Karnpschulte, " Universitat Erfurt," 2, p. 173, quoted from a
publication which is not by the Erfurt preacher Mechler, as he thinks,
but by Eberlin. Cp. N. Paulus in Janssen, 218, p. 240, n. 3.

LUTHER'S RESPONSIBILITY 125

number of such priests and nuns was increasing endlessly. " I
cannot sufficiently execrate these fugitives. No Phyllis is more
wanton than our nuns."1

A third witness, also from Erfurt, Euritius Cordus, complains
in similar fashion in a letter written in 1522 to Draco : No one
here has been improved one little bit by the evangel ; " on the
contrary, avarice has increased and likewise the opportunities
for the worst freedom of the flesh " ; priests and monks were
everywhere set upon marrying, which in itself is not to be dis
approved of, and the young students were more lawless than
soldiers in camp.2

Protestant historians arc fond of limiting the moral evils
to the period which followed the Peasant Wars of 1525 as
though they had been caused by the disorders of the time.
The above accounts, given by followers of the new move
ment, extend, however, to earlier years, and to these many
others previous to 1525 will be added in the course of our
narrative.

It has also frequently been said that the confusion which
always accompanies popular movements which stir men's
minds must be taken into account when considering the
disastrous moral effects so evident in the camp of the
Reformers. But this view of the matter, if not false, is at
least open to doubt. The disorders just described were not
at all creditable to a work undertaken in the name of
religion. The results were also felt long after. If all revolu
tions easily led to such consequences, in this instance the
lamentable moral outcome was all the more inevitable,
seeing that " freedom " was the watchword.

The undeniable fact of the existence of such a state of
things was all the more disagreeable to its authors, i.e.
Luther and his friends, since they were well aware that the
great ecclesiastical movements in former days, which had
really been inspired by God, usually exhibited, more par
ticularly in their beginnings, abundant moral benefits.
"The first fruits of the Spirit," as they had been manifested
in the Church, were very different from those attending the
efforts of the Wittenberg Professor, who, nevertheless, had

Helii Eobani Hessi et amicorum ipsius opistolarum familiarium
libri 12," Marpurgi, 1543, p. 87. Phyllis, the beloved of Demophon,
became the type of sensual passion.

2 Ibid., p. 90. For date see Oergel, " Beitrage zur (Jesch. ties Er-
furter Humanismus," in " Mitt, des Vereim fiirdie Gesch. von Erfurt,"
part 15, 1892, p. 107.

126 THE APOSTASY

himself designated this period as the " primitice spiritus."1
It was but poor comfort in their difficulty to strive to
reassure themselves by considerations such as Cordus
brings forward to meet the complaints we quoted above :
" Maybe the Word of God has only now opened our eyes to
see clearly, to recognise as sin, and abhor with fear, what
formerly "we scarcely heeded." This strange fashion of
soothing his conscience he had learnt from Luther. (See
vol. iv., xxiv.)

It is worth while to observe the impression which the
facts just mentioned made on Luther's foes.

Erasmus, who at the commencement was not unfavourably
disposed towards the movement, turned away from it with
disgust, influenced, in part at least, by the tales he heard con
cerning the apostate priests and religious. " They seek two
things," he wrote, " an income (censum) and a wife ; besides, the
evangel affords them freedom to live as they please."2 In a
letter to the Strasburg preacher, Martin Bucer, he said : " Those
who have given up the recital of the Canonical Hours do not now
pray at all ; many who have laid aside the pharisaical dress are
really worse than they were before."3 And again : "The first
thing that makes me draw back from this company is, that I see
so many among this troop becoming altogether estranged from
the purity of the Gospel. Some I knew as excellent men before
they joined this sect ; what they are now, I know not, but I
hear that many have become worse, and none better." — The
evangel now prospers, he says elsewhere, " because priests and
monks take wives contrary to human laws, or at any rate con
trary to their vow. Look around and see whether their marriages
are more chaste than those of others upon whom they look as
heathen."4

Valentine Ickelsamer, an Anabaptist opponent of Luther's,
reminds him in his writing in defence of Carlstadt in 1525,5
that Holy Scripture says : "By their works you shall know
them." Even while studying at Wittenberg [a few years before]
he had been obliged to appeal to this " text of Matthew septimo,"
out of disgust at the riotous life people led there ; " they had,
however, always found a convenient method of explaining it

1 '; Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 263 (" Brief wechsel," 4, p. 372, July,
1524) : " I know that we ... as St. Paul says, Romans viii. 23, have
the first fruits of the Spirit, primitias spiritus, although we have not
yet received the fulness of the Spirit."

2 Letter to W. Pirkheimer, 1528, " Opp.," Lugduni Batavorum,
1702 seq., t. 3, p. 1139.

3 " Opp.," 3, p. 1030. Dollinger, " Die Reformation," 1, p. 12.

4 Ibid., 10, p. 1578 seq. Dollinger, p. 15.

5 " Clag etlicher Briider," etc., ed. Enders (" Neudrucke deutscher
Literaturwerke," No. 118, 1893), p. 48.

THE PREACHERS' MORALS 127

away, or got out of the difficulty by the help of some paltry
gloss." " You also," he says to Luther, " loudly complained
that we blamed only the faults on your side. No, we do not
judge, or blame any sinner as you do ; but what we do say is
that where Christian faith is not productive of Christian works,
there the faith is neither rightly preached nor rightly accepted."'
It is true that this corrector of the public morals could only
point to a pretence of works among his own party, and in weigh
ing his evidence against Luther allowance must be made for
his prejudice against him. Still, his words give some idea of the
character of the protests made against the Wittenberg preachers
in the prints of that time. He approves of the marriage of the
clergy who had joined Luther's party, and refuses to open his
eyes to what was taking place among the Anabaptists them
selves : " They" [your preachers], he says, " threaten and force
the poor people by fair, or rather foul and tyrannical, means,
to feed their prostitutes, for these clerical fellows judge it better
to keep a light woman than a wedded wife, because they are
anxious about their external appearance. . . . Such declare
that whoever accuses them of keeping prostitutes lies like a
scoundrel. . . . But if such are not the worst fornicators and
knaves, let the fiend fly away with me. I often wonder whether
the devil is ever out of temper now, for lie has the whole of the
preacher folk on his side ; on their part there has been nothing
but deception." Were the people to seize the preachers " by
the scruff of their neck " on account of their wickedness, then
they would call themselves martyrs, and say that Christ had
foretold their persecution ; true enough the other mad priests
[the Catholics] were " clearly messengers and satellites of the
devil " ; nevertheless he could not help being angered by Luther's
" rich, uncouth, effeminate, whoremongering mob of preachers,"
who were so uncharitable in their ways and " who yet pretended
to be Christians."1

It is obvious that Ickelsamcr and his party went too far
when they asserted that not one man who led an honest life
was to be found among the Lutheran preachers, for in reality
there was no lack of well-meaning men who, like Willibald
Pirkheimer and Albrecht Diirer, were bent on making use
of their powers in the interests of what they took to be the
pure Gospel. This, however, was less frequently the case
with the apostate priests and monks. The thoughts of the
impartial historian revert of their own accord to the moral
disorders prevalent in the older Church. We are not at
liberty to ignore the fact that it was impossible for the
Catholics at that time to point to any shining examples on
their side which might have shamed the Lutherans. They
1 " Clag etlicher Brvider " (above, p. 126, n. 5), p. 47.

128 THE APOSTASY

were obliged to admit that the abuses rampant in clerical
and monastic life had, as a matter of fact, prepared the way
for and facilitated the apostasy of many of those who went
over to Luther and became preachers of the new faith. The
Church had to lament not only the fate of those who turned
their back on her, but the earlier decay of many of her own
institutions ; under the influence of the spirit of the age
this decay was hourly growing worse. At the same time the
secession of so many undesirable elements was itself a
reason for not despairing of recovery.

A great contrast to the lives of the apostate monks and
clergy is nevertheless presented in an account which has
been preserved by one of the adherents of the new faith of
the conditions prevailing in certain monasteries where the
friars, true to the Rule of their founder, kept their vows in
the right spirit. The Franciscan Observants of the Province
of Higher Germany were then governed by Caspar Schatz-
geyeiCa capable Bavarian Friar Minor, and, notwithstanding
many difficulties, numbered in 1523 no less than 28 friaries
and 5GO members. In the course of the fifteenth century
the Franciscan Observantincs had spread far and wide as
a result of the reform inaugurated within the Order and
approved of by Rome. The Franciscan foundations at
Heidelberg, Basle, Tubingen, Nuremberg, Mayence, Ulm,
Ingoldstadt, Munich and other cities had one after the
other made common cause with the Observants and, unlike
the Coventuals, observed the old Rule in all its primitive
strictness.

It was Johann Eberlin of Gunzburg, a Franciscan who had
apostatised to Lutheranism, who, in 1523, in a tract " Against
those spurious clergymen of the Christian flock known as bare
footed friars or Franciscans," was compelled to bear witness to
the pure and mortified life of these monks with whom he was so
well acquainted, though he urges that the devil was artfully
using for his own purposes their piety, which was altogether
devoid of true faith, " in order to entangle the best and most
zealous souls in the meshes of his diabolical net." " They lead a
chaste life in words, works and behaviour," says Eberlin, speak
ing of them generally ; "if amongst a hundred one should act
otherwise, this is not to be wondered at. If he transgresses [in
the matter of chastity], he is severely punished as a warning to
others. Their rough grey frock and hempen girdle, the absence
of boots, breeches, vest, woollen or linen shirt, their not being
allowed to bathe, being obliged to sleep in their clothes and not on

LUTHER'S PRIVATE LIFE 129

feather-beds but on straw, their fasts which last half the year,
their lengthy services in choir, etc., all this shows everyone that
they have little or no care for their own body. Their simplicity
in dress and adornment, their great obedience, their not assuming
any titles at the University however learned they may be, their
seldom riding or driving luxuriously, shows that they are not
desirous of pomp or honour. Their possessing nothing, whether
in common or individually, their taking no money and refusing
even to touch it, their not extorting offerings or dues from the
people, but living only on alms with which the people supply
them of their own accord ; this shows their contempt for the
riches of the world. The world is astonished at these men who
do not indulge in any of the pleasures of feminine company, or in
eating and drinking— for they fast much and never eat flesh
meat — or in soft clothing, or long sleep, etc. Hence the world
believes them to be more than human ; it also sees how these
virtuous men preach and hear confessions, scare others from sin,
exhort them to virtue, move them to fear hell and God's judg
ments, and to desire the Kingdom of Heaven ; ever with the
Word of God and His judgments on their lips, so that they
appear to be wTell-versed in Scripture, and to be carrying out in
their whole life and practice what they teach. . . . Countless
godly men have entered this state ; from all ranks, places and
countries, people have hastened to join this Order ; every corner
of Christendom is full of Franciscan friaries."1

3. Reaction of the Apostasy on its Author.

His Private Life (1522-1525)

The moral results of Luther's undertaking and its effect
upon himself have been very variously represented. The
character of the originator of so gigantic a movement in
the realm of ideas could not escape experiencing deeply the
reaction of the events in progress ; yet the opinion even
of his contemporaries concerning Luther's morals in the
critical years immediately preceding his marriage differ
widely, according to the view they take of his enterprise.
While by his adherents he is hailed as a second Elias,2
some of his opponents do not hesitate to accuse him of the
worst moral aberrations. Ickelsamcr, however, one of the
spokesmen of the " fanatics," who did not scruple to raise
an angry voice against Luther's preachers, and even against
Luther himself, was unable to adduce against him any

1 "Wider die falsch scheynende, usw." Noplace, 1524. A3b. AJab.
In N. Paulus, " Johann Wild " ("3. Vereinsschrift der Gorresgesell-
schaft fur 1893 "), p. 3 f.

2 See below, p. 134, n. 4, and p. 163.

ir. — K

130 THE APOSTASY

evidence of sexual misconduct during those years. It is
also very remarkable that Ickelsamer's friend, Thomas
Miinzer, in his violent and bitter controversial attack upon
Luther dating from that time, was also unable to bring
forward charges of immorality. Both would doubtless have
gladly availed themselves of any offences against the moral
code of which Luther might have been guilty between
1522 and 1524, but in spite of their watchfulness they failed
to detect any such.

Nevertheless, accusations of Ickelsamer's, in which he
speaks more in detail of Luther's " faulty life," are not
lacking.

He finds fault with his " defiant teaching and his wilful dis
position," also with the frightful violence of the abuse with
which in his writings he overwhelms his adversaries ; recklessly
and defiantly he flung abroad books filled with blasphemies. He
blames him for the proud and tyrannical manner in which he
sets up a " Papal Chair " for himself so as to suppress without
mercy the new teachers who differ from him. Concerning his
administration, lie admits that Luther " exerted himself vigor
ously to put down evil living, in which efforts it was easy to
detect the working of the Christian faith," but he adds that the
" public fornication " of certain masters and college fellows,
as well as others who were in high favour, was winked at j1 he,
Ickelsamer, would say of the Wittenberg Professors what had
long before been said of Rome : the nearer they live to Wittenberg
the worse Christians are. He also reminds Luther of the " scandal
and offence " the latter had given him by his excuses for the " mad
and immoral goings on " at Wittenberg : " You said, ' We can't
be angels.' " Of his private life he merely remarks that it
annoyed him that Luther, " neglectful of so many urgent matters,"
" could sit in the pleasant room overlooking the water," " drink
ing cheerfully," " among the beer-swillers." Finally, with the
usual hypocritical severity of the Anabaptists, he reproaches
him concerning other matters, his extravagance in dress, and
the pomp displayed at the promotion of Doctors.2

Thomas Miinzer in his violent " Schutzrede "3 speaks at great
length of Luther's pride, who, he says, wished to be a new Pope
while making a show of humility ; he " excited and urged on the
people like a hound of hell," though protesting that he did not
wish to raise a revolt, " like a serpent that glides over the rocks."
Luther, in the very title of his work, lie describes, as " that
dull, effeminate lump of flesh at Wittenberg." In the course of

1 Clag (above, p. 12G, n. 5), p. 48. 2 Ibid.

3 " Hochverursachte Schutzrede und Antwort wider das geistlose
sanftlebende Fleisch zu Wittenberg," ed. Enders (see above, p. 126, n. 5),
p. 29 fi.

LUTHER'S PRIVATE LIFE 131

the same work he speaks of him scornfully as " Martin, the virgin,"
and exclaims, " Ah, the chaste Babylonian virgin." He classes
him, on account of his sermons on " freedom," with those teachers
" who are pleasing to the world, which likes an easy life " ; he
speaks of him sarcastically as a " new Christ " with a " fine
subject for his preaching," viz. " that priests may take wives."1
He does not accuse him of any particular moral excess, but
nevertheless remarks that " the disgraced monk " was not likely to
suffer very severely under the persecution of which he boasted
" when enjoying good Malvasian and feasting with light women."2
The latter allusion probably refers merely to Luther's love of a
good dinner, and his merry ways at his meals, which, to a strict
Anabaptist like Miinzer, seemed as deserving of execration as
feasting with dissolute women.

It has recently been asserted by an eminent Protestant
controversialist that Luther's contemporaries never accused
him of moral laxity or of offences against chastity, and that
it was only after his death that people ventured to bring
forward such charges ; so long as he lived " the Romans,"
so we read, " accused him of one only deed against the sixth
commandment, viz. with his marriage " ; Pistorius, Ulen-
berg and " Jesuits like Weislinger who copied them," were
the first to enter the lists with such accusations.

To start with, we may remark that Weislinger was not a
Jesuit and that Ulenberg does not mention any moral
offence committed by Luther apart from his matrimony.
In fact the whole statement of the controversialist just
quoted must be treated as a legend. As a matter of fact,
serious charges regarding this matter were brought against
Luther even in his lifetime and in the years previous to his
union with Catherine von Bora.

In 1867 a less timorous Protestant writer, who had
studied Luther's history, brought forward the following
passage from a manuscript letter written in 1522 by a
Catholic, Count Hoyer von Mansfeld, to Count Ulrich von
Helfenstein : " He had been a good Lutheran before that
time and at Worms, but had come to see that Luther was a
thorough scoundrel, who drank deeply, as was the custom
at Mansfeld, liked the company of beautiful women, played
the lute and led a frivolous life ; therefore he [the Count]

1 " Hochverursachte Schutzrede und Antwort wider das geistlose
sanftlebende Fleisch zu Wittenberg," ed. Enders, p. 3L

2 Ibid., p. 30.

132 THE APOSTASY

had abandoned his cause."1 From that time Hoyer von
Mansfeld resolutely opposed Luther, caused a disputation
to be held against him in 1526, and, to the end of his life
(1540), kept a part of the Mansfeld estates loyal to the
Catholic faith. Hoyer was an opponent of Luther when he
wrote the above, but he must have received a very bad
impression of Luther's private life during the period subse
quent to the latter's stay at the Wartburg if this was the
reason of his deserting Luther's cause. It is conceivable
that at the time of the Diet of Worms, when Hoyer declares
he was still a " good Lutheran," the contrast between
Luther's behaviour and the monastic habits of his earlier
life had not yet become so conspicuous. (See above, p. 79.)
After his stay at the Wartburg and subsequent to his
'attacks both literary and practical on the vow of chastity
and on celibacy, a change such as that which Hoyer so
distinctly refers to may have taken place. Wittenberg, the
rallying- point of so many questionable allies and escaped
nuns in search of a refuge, was, in view of Luther's social, not
to say jovial, disposition, scarcely a suitable place for him.
His want of self-restraint and the levity of his bearing were
censured at that time by others, and even by Melanchthon.
(See below, p. 144.)

The following year, 1523, after the arrival at Wittenberg
of the nuns who had been " liberated " from their convents,
there is no doubt that grave, though grossly exaggerated
reports, unfavourable to Luther's life and behaviour, were
circulated both in Catholic circles and at the Court of
Ferdinand the German King. Luther's attacks upon the
Church caused these reports to be readily accepted. An
echo from the Court reached Luther's ears, and he gives
some account of it in a letter of January 14, 1524. Accord
ing to this, it had been said in the King's surroundings " that
he frequented the company of light women, played dice and
spent his time in the public-houses " ; also that he was fond
of going about armed and accompanied by a stately retinue ;
likewise, that he occupied a post of honour at the Court of

1 In an anonymous review, important on account of its original
matter, of Burkhardt's " Brief wechsel Luthers " (" Augsburger
Allgemeine Zeitung," 1867, Beilage, No. 18). Unfortunately, the
learned expert, who takes Luther's part, does not mention the source
whence the above passage is taken. It appears to occur in some
unprinted MS.

LUTHER'S PRIVATE LIFE 133

his sovereign Prince. The tale regarding his bearing arms
and occupying posts of honour Luther was able easily to
repudiate by the testimony of his friends. He also con
fidently declared the remaining statements to be merely
lies.1

Proof is wanting to substantiate the charge of " fornica
tion " contained in a letter written from Rome by Jacob
Zicgler to Erasmus on February 16, 1522. Ziegler there
relates that he had been invited by a bishop to dinner and that
the conversation turned on Luther : " The opinion was
expressed that he was given to fornication and tippling, vices
to which the Germans were greatly addicted."2 Abroad, and
more particularly in the great Catholic centres, such reports
met with a more favourable reception than elsewhere. The
Germans were always held up as examples of drunkenness,
and, regarding Luther, such accusations were at a later date
certainly carried too far. (See vol. iii., xvii. 7, " The Good
Drink.")

In order to judge objectively of Luther's behaviour,
greater stress must be laid upon the circumstances which
imposed caution and reticence upon him than has been
done so far by his accusers.

Luther, both at that time and later, frequently declared
that he himself, as well as his followers, must carefully avoid
every action which might give public scandal and so
prejudice the new Evangel, seeing that his adversaries were
kept well informed of everything that concerned him. He
ever endeavoured to live up to this principle, for on this his
whole undertaking to some extent depended. " The eyes
of the whole world are on us," he cries in a sermon in 1524. 3
" We are a spectacle to the whole world," he says ; " there
fore how necessary it is that our word should be blameless,
as St. Paul demands (Tit. ii. 8) ! "4 " In order that worth
less men may have no opportunity to blaspheme," he

1 To Spalatin, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 278 : " Quod scorlis, aleis,
tabernis vacarem. . . . Mendaciis satis sum assuetus"

2 " Summa sententia erat, scortatorem eum esse et compotorem, quali-
bus viciis fere laborarent Germani." " Archiv fur Reformationsgesch,"
3, 1905, p. 79.

3 " Wcrke," Weirn. cd., 15, p. 774.

4 To Spalatin, August 15, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 218 : " Orbis
theatrum sumus," etc. Cp. 1 Corinthians iv. 9 : " Spectaculum facti
sumus mundo et angelis et hominibus,"

134 THE APOSTASY

refuses later, for instance, to accept anything at all as a
present out of the Church property of the bishopric of
Naumburg,1 and he reprimands a drunken relative, sternly
admonishing him : On your account I am evil spoken of ;
my foes seek out everything that concerns me ; therefore
it was his duty, Luther tells him, " to consider his family,
the town he lived in, the Church and the Gospel of God."2
Mathesius also relates the following remark made by Luther
when advanced in years : " Calumniators overlook the
virtues of great men, but where they see a fault or stain in
any, they busy themselves in raking it up and making it
known." " The devil keeps a sharp eye on me in order to
render my teaching of bad repute or to attach some shameful
stain to it."3

In 1521 Luther thinks he is justified in giving himself this
excellent testimonial : " During these three years so many
lies have been invented about me, as you know, and yet
they have all been disproved." " I think that people ought
to believe my own Wittenbergers, who are in daily inter
course with me and see my life, rather than the tales of
liars who are not even on the spot." His life was a public
one, he said, and he was at the service of all ; he worked so
hard that " three of my years are really equal to six."4

His energy in work was not to be gainsaid, but it was just
his numerous writings produced in the greatest haste and
under the influence of passion which led his mind further
and further from the care of his spiritual life, and thus
paved the way for certain other moral imperfections ; here,
also, we see one of the effects of the struggle on his character.
At the same time he exposed himself to the danger of
acquiring the customs and habits of thought of so many
of his followers and companions, who had joined his party
not from higher motives but for reasons of the basest
sort.

1 To Amsdorf, February 12, 1542, " Briefe," ed. De Wette, 5, p. 434.

2 Mathesius, " Tischreden," p. 185.

3 " Historien," 1566, p. 154. Cp. " Lauterbachs Tagebuch," p. 121,
and " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 1, p. 420.

4 " Auff des Bocks zu Leypczick Antwort," " Werke," Weim. ed., 1,
pp. 273, 275 ; Erl. ed., 27, pp. 208, 210, 211. For the manner in which
his pupils at Wittenberg praised him, see below, p. 157 f. Erasmus's
eulogy on his manner of life is also an echo from the circle of his en
thusiastic friends ; see xiv. 3.

THE NIMBSCHEN NUNS 135

In 1522 Johannes Fabri writes of the moral atmosphere sur
rounding Luther and his methods of work : " I am well aware,
my Luther, that your only object was to gain the favour of
many by this concession [the marriage of priests], and as a
matter of fact, you have succeeded in doing so." Why, he
asks, did you not rather, " by your writings and exhorta
tions, induce the priests who had fallen into sin to give up
their concubines ? " " I see you make it your business to
tell the people what will please them in order to increase
the number of your supporters. . . . You lay pillows under
the heads of those who, from the moral standpoint, are
snoring in a deep sleep and you know how difficult, nay
dangerous, it is for me and those who think as I do, to
oppose the doctrine which you teach."1

That his work was leading him on the downward path
and threatened to extinguish his interior religious life,
Luther himself admitted at that time, though in some of his
other statements he declares that his zeal in God's service
had been promoted by the struggle. He confesses in 1523,
for instance, to the Zwickau Pastor Nicholas Hausmann,
whom he esteemed very highly, that his interior life was
" drying up," and concludes : " Pray for me that I may
not end in the flesh." He is here alluding to the passage in
St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians where he warns the
latter, lest having begun in the spirit they should end in the
flesh.2 This Pastor was a spiritual friend to whom, owing
to his esteem for him, he confided much, though his con
fessions must not always be taken too literally.

The well-known incident of the flight of the nuns from the
convent at Nimbschen, and their settling in Wittenberg,
was looked upon by Luther and his followers as a matter of
the greatest importance. The apostasy of the twelve nuns,
among whom was Catherine von Bora, opened the door of
all the other convents, as Luther expressed it, and demon
strated publicly what must be done " on behalf of the
salvation of souls."3 Some of these nuns, as was frequently
the case, had entered the Cistercian convent near Grimma,

1 " Opus adv. nova qusedam et a Christiana religione prorsus aliena
dogmata M. Lutheri," Romae, Q 3a. R 2b. : " Ponis cervicalia sub
capita eorum, qui stertunt," etc.

2 Letter of May 24, 1523, " Briefwechsel," 4, p. 144 ; Gal. iii. 3.

3 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 559. See the text in the work men
tioned, p. 137, n. 1.

136 THE APOSTASY

without a vocation, or had gradually become disgusted with
their state owing to long-continued tepidity and want of
fidelity to their profession. They had contrived to place
themselves in communication with Luther, who, as he admits
later in a public writing, himself arranged for them to be
carried away by force, seeing that their relatives would do
nothing. The plan was put into effect by one of the
town councillors of Torgau, Leonard Koppc, aided by two
other citizens of that town. Koppc had shortly before dis
played heroic energy and skill in an attack upon a poor
convent ; with sixteen young comrades he had stormed
the Franciscan friary at Torgau on the night of Ash Wednes
day, 1523, thrown the monks who offered any resistance
over the wall and smashed the windows, doors and
furniture.1 At the close of the Lenten season of the same
year he signalised himself by this new exploit at Nimb-
schcn.

On the Saturday in Holy Week, 1523, agreeably with an
arrangement made beforehand with the apostate nuns, he
made his appearance in the courtyard of the convent with
an innocent-looking covered van, in which the nuns
quietly took their places. As the van often came to the
convent with provisions, no one noticed their flight. So
runs the most authentic of the various accounts, some of
them of a romantic nature, viz. that related by a chronicler
of Torgau who lived about the year 1600.2 Koppe brought
the fugitives straight to Wittenberg, where they were safe.
After a while they were received into different families in
the town, or were fetched away by their relatives. Thus set
free from their " bonds " on that memorable day of the
Church's year, they celebrated their so-called " resur
rection."

Luther declared, in a circular letter concerning this
occurrence, that as Christ, the risen One, had, like a trium
phant robber, snatched his prey from the Prince of this
world, so also Leonard Koppe might be termed " a blessed
robber." All who were on God's side would praise the rape
of the nuns as a " great act of piety, so that you may rest

1 See proofs given in the " Katholik," 1892, 2, p. 421 f., in the
article by P. A. Kirsch.

2 Cp. E. Kroker, " Katharina v. Bora," Leipzig, 1906, p. 36 f.,
where the legends are ably criticised.

THE NIMBSCHEN NUNS 137

assured that God has ordained it and that it is not your work
or your conception."1

The twelve nuns were, as Amsdorf writes to Spalatin on
April 4, " pretty, and all of noble birth, and among them
I have not found one who is fifty years old. ... I am sorry
for the girls ; they have neither shoes nor dresses." Amsdorf
praises the patience and cheerfulness of the " honourable
maidens," and recommends them through Spalatin to the
charity of the Court. One, namely the sister of Staupitz,
who was no longer so youthful, he at once offers in marriage
to Spalatin, though he admits he has others who are prettier.
" If you wish for a younger one, you shall have your choice
of the prettiest."2

Soon after this three other nuns were carried off by their
relatives from Nimbschen. Not long after, sixteen forsook
the Mansfeld convent of Widerstett, five of whom were
received by Count Albert of Mansfeld. Luther reported
this latter event with great joy to the Court Chaplain,
Spalatin, and at the same time informed him that the
apostate Franciscan, Frangois Lambert of Avignon, had
become engaged to a servant girl at Wittenberg. His
intention, and Amsdorf's too, was to coax Spalatin into
matrimony and the violation of his priestly obligation of
celibacy. "It is a strange spectacle," he writes; "what
more can befall to astonish us, unless you yourself at
length follow our example, and to our surprise appear in
the guise of a bridegroom ? God brings such wonders to
pass, that I, who thought I knew something of His ways,
must set to work again from the very beginning. But His
Holy Will be done, Amen."3

Luther at that time was not in a happy frame of mind.
He knew what was likely to be his experience with the
escaped monks and nuns. The trouble and waste of time,
as well as the serious interruption to his work, which, as he
complains, was occasioned by the religious who had left their

1 In the writing, " Ursach und Anttwortt das Jungkfrawen Kloster
gottlich verlassen mugen," which Luther sent on April 10, 1523,
in the form of a circular letter to Leonard Koppe. " Werke,"
Weim. ed., 11, p. 394 ft'.; Erl. ed., 29, p. 33 (" Brief wechsel," 4,
p. 132).

2 Kolde, " Analecta Luth.," p. 443.

3 On June 24, 1523, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 169.

138 THE APOSTASY

convents, appeared to him relatively insignificant.1 The
large sums of money which, as he remarks, he had to " throw
away on runaway monks and nuns," he might also have
overlooked, as he was not avaricious.2 Yet the disorders
introduced by the arrival of so many people bent on matri
mony were distasteful to him. In a letter to Spalatin, July
11, 1523, this complaint escapes him : " I am growing to
hate the sight of these renegade monks who collect here in
such numbers ; what annoys me most is that they wish to
marry at once, though they arc of no use for anything. I
am seeking a means to put an end to it."3 The good name
of his undertaking seemed to him to be at stake. On the
occasion of the marriage of a Court preacher to a very old
but wealthy woman, a match which was much talked about,
he complains bitterly that the step was a disgrace to the
Evangel ; the miserly bridegroom was " betraying himself
and us."4

Above we have heard him speak of the monks who were
desirous of marrying ; he was more indulgent to the nuns
who had come to Wittenberg. According to Melanchthon's
account he entered into too frequent and intimate relation
ship with them. (See below.)

Of the twelve who escaped from Nimbschcn, nine, who
were without resources, found a refuge in various houses at
Wittenberg, while only three went to their relatives
in the Saxon Electorate. To begin with, from necessity
and only for a short time, the nine found quarters
in the Augustinian monastery which had remained in
Luther's hands, in which he still dwelt and where there was
plenty of room ; later they found lodgings in the town.
Luther had to provide in part for their maintenance.
Catherine von Bora was lodged by him in the house of the
Town-clerk, Reichenbach.

There was no longer any question of monastic seclusion
for those quondam nuns, or for the others who had taken
refuge at Wittenberg. Bora started a love affair in 1523
with Hieronymus Baumgartner, a young Nuremberg

1 To Johann CEcolampadius, June 20, 1523, ibid., p. 164 : " Moniales
et monachi egressi tnihi multas horas furantur, ut omnium necessitati
serviam."

2 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 560. 3 " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 177 f.
4 To Spalatin, September 19, 1523, ibid., p. 233.

THE NIMBSCHEN NUNS 139

patrician ; he, however, married another girl in the com
mencement of 1525. * Christian, the exiled King of Denmark,
made her acquaintance during his stay at Wittenberg in
October, 1523 ; she showed, at a later date, a ring he had
presented to her. In 1524 she was to have been married to
Dr. Glatz, then Pastor of Orlamunde, in consequence of
Luther's stern and repeated urging. She let it, however, be
understood that she looked higher, refused Glatz's proposal,
and announced quite frankly to Amsdorf that she would
give her hand only to Luther himself, or to Amsdorf, his
confidant. Amsdorf was not to be allured into matrimony,
and remained single all his life. Luther, on the other hand,
was also not then desirous of marrying and, besides, stood
rather in awe of a certain haughtiness of bearing which was
said to be noticeable in her, and which was attributed to her
aristocratic descent.

Had he wished to marry at that time Luther, as he
declared later, \vould have preferred one of the other nuns,
viz. Ave von Schonfeld, who, however, eventually married
a young physician who was studying at Wittenberg. He
also speaks on one occasion, at a later date, of a certain Ave
Alemann, a member of a Magdeburg family, as his one-time
" bride," but simply, as it seems, because Amsdorf had
proposed her to him as a wife. Confirmed bachelor as he was,
Amsdorf appears to have developed at that time a special
aptitude for arranging matches.

Luther's intercourse with his female guests at Witten
berg naturally gave rise to all sorts of tales among his
friends, the more so as he was very free and easy in the
company of women, and imposed too little restraint upon
his conduct. When it was said, even outside Wittenberg
circles, that he would marry, he replied, on November 30,
1524, that, according to his present ideas, this would not
happen, " not as though I do not feel my flesh and my sex,
for I am neither of wood nor of stone, but I have no inclina
tion to matrimony."2

He was all the more zealous, however, in urging others,
his friend Spalatin in particular, to this step. Spalatin once
jokingly reproved him for this, saying he was surprised he
did not set the example, being so anxious to induce others

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 728 ff.

2 To Spalatin, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 77.

140 THE APOSTASY

to marry. To this friendly poke Luther replied with a
strange admixture of jest and earnest. He wrote to him, on
April 16, 1525, that, notwithstanding the fact that he him
self was far removed from thoughts of marriage, yet, after
all, as God was wont to bring the unexpected to pass, it might
well be that of the twro he would be the first to wed. He
also speaks of himself jestingly as a " famous lover." It
was doubtless surprising, he says, that he, such a famous
lover, had not married, though, as he wrote so frequently
about marriage and had so much to do with women (misceor
feminis), it wras still more astonishing that he had not long
ago become a woman.1 The letter, which has been much
discussed in recent times, is not to be taken seriously ; here
it is that he speaks, with misplaced pleasantry, of the
" three wives " whom he had already had on his arm.

This letter calls, however, for some further observations.

It is hard to believe that Luther, in an everyday letter to a
friend, should have spoken in earnest of a previous connection of
his with three women at once. Is it likely that he would accuse
himself of such intercourse, and that in a letter to a man whose
good opinion of himself and his work he was in every way careful
to preserve ?

We are not here concerned with the question whether such
jests were suitable, coming from a reformer of faith and morals,
yet they certainly do not, as has been thought, contain anything
of a nature to compromise him in his relations with the escaped
nuns.

That Luther is jesting is plain from the conclusion : " Joking
apart, I say all this in order to urge you on to what you are
striving after [viz. marriage]. Farewell." Hence it is clear that
what precedes was said as a joke.

He chose to make the matter one of jest because he fancied
that thus he could best answer Spalatin's objection against his
former invitation to him to marry. The latter had retorted :
" Why am I expected to start ? Set the example yourself by
your own marriage ! " Luther thereupon replied in the follow
ing terms :

" As for your observations about my marriage, do not be
surprised that I, who am such a famous lover (famosus amator),
do not proceed to matrimony. It is still more remarkable that
I, who write so frequently concerning marriage and have so
much to do with women (sic misceor feminis), have not become a
woman long since, not to mention the fact that I have not as yet
even taken one to wife. Still, if you want my example, here you
have a forcible one, for I have had three wives at one time (tres
simul uxores habui) and loved them so desperately that I lost
1 On April 16, 1525, ibid., p. 157.

LUTHER'S "THREE WIVES" 141

two who will get other bridegrooms ; as for the third I can
hardly keep hold of her with my left arm? and she too will perhaps
soon be snatched away from me. But you, you slothful lover,
you do not even venture to become the husband of one wife.
Take care, however, lest I [though still in spirit disinclined to
marriage] do not nevertheless outstrip you people who are all
ready for the wedding, for God is wont to bring to pass what we
least expect." Then follow the words already mentioned,
introduced by the formula : " Joking apart."

These rather unseasonable words were written in a merry
mood on Easter Sunday, just as Luther was on the point of
leaving Wittenberg for Eisleben. As Luther had not yet made
up his mind whether to marry or not, he evaded Spalatin's
invitation to do so immediately with the jest about being a
" famous lover," words probably applied to him by Spalatin in
the letter to which this is an answer. He means to say : As a
famous lover I have already given you the encouraging example
you desire, and the proof of this is to be found in the " three
women I loved so deeply as to lose them." This refers doubtless
to three aspirants to matrimony with whom Spalatin was ac
quainted, and whom common report had designated as likely to
wed Luther ; wTho they actually were we do not know. Some
Protestants have suggested Ave Alemann and Ave Schonfeld
(see above p. 139). The first, a native of Magdeburg, had been
presented to Luther during his stay in that town as a likely wife.
He would have preferred the second. But of neither could he
have said in his letter that they would shortly have other bride
grooms, for Alemann had been married some time, and Schonfeld
had to wait long for a spouse. Thus it is incorrect to class them
amongst the "three wives," and these must be sought among
others who had intercourse with Luther. The third, at any rate,
seems to have been Catherine von Bora, who was stopping at
that time in Wittenberg and actually was engaged on matrimonial
plans.

In any case, the husband who loses three wives through his
" too great love " is a joke on a par with the wonder expressed
by Luther, that, after having written so much about marriage
and had so much to do with women, he had not himself been
turned into a woman.

In his not very choice pleasantries when referring to the inter
course with women which resulted from his writings, Luther
makes use of a very equivocal expression, for " misceor feminis,"
taken literally in the context in which it stands, would imply
sexual commerce with women, which is not at all what the
writer intends to convey. It cannot be denied that the jest
about the three women and the ambiguous word " misceor,"
are out of place and not in keeping with the gravity and moral
dignity which we might expect from a man of Luther's position.
Such jests betray a certain levity of character, nor can we see
how certain Lutherans can describe the letter as " scrupulously
decorous."

142 THE APOSTASY

It is nevertheless true, and more particularly of this letter,
that the unrestrained humour which so often breaks out in
Luther's writings must be taken into account in order to judge
fairly of what he says ; it is only in this way that we are able to
interpret him rightly. Owing to the fact that the jocose element
which, in season and out of season, so frequently characterises
Luther's manner of speaking is lost sight of, his real meaning is
often misunderstood.

Just as he had urged his friend Spalatin, so, though in
more serious language, Luther exhorts the Elector Albert,
Archbishop of Mayence, to matrimony.

This alone should be a sufficient reason for him, he writes,
namely, that he is a male ; " for it is God's work and will that a
man should have a wife. . . . Where God does not work a miracle
and make of a man an angel, I cannot see how he is to remain
without a wife, and avoid God's anger and displeasure. And it is
a terrible thing should he be found without a wife at the hour of
death." He points out to him that the downfall of the whole
clergy is merely a question of time, since priests are everywhere
scoffed at ; " priests and monks are caricatured on every wall,
on every bill, and even on the playing cards." The sanguinary
peasant risings which were commencing are also made to serve
his ends ; God is punishing His people in this way because " the
bishops and princes will not make room for the evangel " ; the
Archbishop ought therefore to follow the " fine example " given
recently by the " Grand Master in Prussia," i.e. marry, and
" turn the bishopric into a temporal principality."1

This letter was printed in 1526. Dr. Johann Riihel received
instructions to sound the Archbishop as to his views and seek to
influence him. It is a well-known fact that Albert was more a
temporal potentate than an ecclesiastical dignitary, and that
his reputation was by no means spotless.

Archbishop Albert was said to have asked Dr. Riihel, or some
other person, why Luther himself did not take a wife, seeing that
he " was inciting everyone else to do so." Should he say this
again, Luther writes to Riihel, " You are to reply that I have
always feared I was not fit for it. But if my marriage would be a
help to his Electoral Grace, I should very soon be ready to
prance along in front of him as an example to his Electoral
Grace ; before quitting this life I purpose in any case to enter
into matrimony, which I regard as enjoined by God, even should
it be nothing more than an espousal, or Joseph's marriage."2
In what way he feared " not to be fit " for marriage, or why he
contemplated nothing more than a " Joseph's marriage," Luther

1 June 2, 1525, " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 402 ff. ; Erl. ed., 53,
p. 308 ff. (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 186). Albert made no reply. On
June 2, the very same day, the peasants were victorious at Konigshofen.

2 Letter of June 3, 1525, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 313 (" Brief-
wechsel," 5, p. 189).

UNSEEMLY JESTS 143

does not say. A " Joseph's marriage " was certainly not calcu
lated to satisfy the demands which he himself was accustomed
to make, in the name of nature, concerning conjugal life. At any
rate, his observation to Dr. Riihel is very remarkable, as being
one of the first indications of his approaching marriage.

At this critical period of his life the free and unrestrained
tone which he had employed at an earlier date becomes
unpleasantly conspicuous in his letters, writings and sermons.
It is sufficient to read the passages in his justification of the
nuns' flight where he treats of his pet conviction, viz. the
need of marrying, in words which, from very shame, are
not usually repeated. " Scandal, or no scandal," he con
cludes his dissertation on the nuns who had forsaken their
vow of chastity, " necessity breaks even iron and gives no
scandal ! "* He had already once before complained that
our ears have become " much purer than the mouth of the
Holy Ghost," referring to certain sexual matters spoken of
very openly in the Old Testament.2 He himself, however,
paid little heed to such conventions, and, especially when
jesting, delighted to set them at defiance.

Many passages already quoted from his letters to friends
prove this. The " misceor feminis " and the " three wives "
on his hands were unbecoming jokes. Kawerau, the
historian of Luther, admits the " cynicism of his language "3
and this unpleasing quality, which is more particularly
noticeable when he becomes abusive, is also to be met with
even elsewhere, especially in the years which we are now
considering.

Luther, for instance, jocosely speaks of himself as a
virgin, " virgo" and, in a letter to Spalatin where he refers
playfully to his own merry and copious tippling at a christen
ing at Schweinitz, he says : " These three virgins were
present [Luther, Jonas and his wife], certainly Jonas [as a
virgin], for as he has no child we call him the virgin."4
Jonas, one of the priests who married, had celebrated his
nuptials February 22, 1522.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 11, p. 400 ; Erl. ed., 29, p. 41, in " Ursach
und Anttwortt das Jungkfrawen Kloster gottlich verlassen mugen."

2 Ibid., 10, 1, p. 692 ; Erl. ed., 102, p. 450, in the Tract against
the state of chastity, embodied in the " Postils."

3 " Luther und seine Gegner, Vortrag," 1903, p. 14. Here it is
true the cynicism is regarded as an " expression of his moral annoy
ance " with the supporters of celibacy, who themselves led immoral
lives. * On March 8, 1523, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 96.

144 THE APOSTASY

On account of his habit of making fun Luther's friends
called him a " merry boon companion."

No one could, of course, blame his love of a joke, but his
jokes were sometimes very coarse; for instance, that con
cerning his friend Jonas in his letter of February 10, 1525,
to Spalatin, of which the tone is indelicate, to say the least,
even if we make all allowance for the age and for the
customs in vogue among the Wittenberg professors. Jonas,
he there says, was accustomed to write his letters on paper
which had served the basest of services ; he (Luther) was,
however, more considerate for his friends. " Farewell," he
concludes, " and give my greetings to the fat husband
Melchior [Meirisch, the stout Augustinian Prior of Dresden,
who had married on February 6] ; my wishes for him are,
that his wife may prove very obedient ; she really ought to
drag him by the hair seven times a day round the market
place and, at night, as he richly deserves, ' bene obtundat
connubialibus verbis.' "J

The reference in this letter to Carlstadt and his " fami
liar demon " (a fanatical monk who was given to prophe
sying) calls to mind the indecent language in which
Luther assailed the Anabaptists and " fanatics " during
those years. He makes great fun at the expense of
the " nackte Brant von Orlamiinde " and her amor
ous lovers, referring, in language which is the reverse of
modest, to a ludicrous, mystical work produced by the
"fanatics."2

Melanchthon is very severe in censuring Luther's free
behaviour and coarse jests, especially when in the presence
of ex-nuns. It has been pointed out by a Protestant that
Luther's tendency to impropriety of language, though it
cannot be denied, is easily to be explained by the fact of his
being a " monk and the son of a peasant." 3 It is hard to see

1 " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 123, on Jonas and his writing materials
(" schedas natales, hoc est de natibus purgatis ").

" Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 93 ; Erl. ed., 29, p. 169. According
to these foes of his, it is, he says, " die rechten evangelischen Prediger,
die der Braut von Orlamiinde das Hembd und dem Brautigam zu
Naschhausen die Hosen ausziehen." Ibid., p. 84 = 160: " Wie aber,
wenn Braut und Brautigam so zuchtig wiiren, und behielten Hembd
und Rock an ? Es solle freilich nicht fast hindern, wenn sie sonst
Lust zusammen hatten." Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 681.

3 The explanation is Kostlin's, and is retained in the most recent
edition by Kawerau, 1, p. 736.

UNSEEMLY JESTS 145

what his being a monk has to do with it, and by what right
the excesses which were perhaps notieeable in some few
frivolous monks are to be regarded as characteristic of the
religious state. Melanchth oil's reproaches lead the same
writer to say, this time with at least some show of reason,
that his friend surpassed Luther in " delicacy of feeling."

Melanchthon, on June 16, 1525, in a confidential letter
written in Greek to Camerarius about Luther's recent
marriage, complains of his behaviour towards the runaway
nuns then at Wittenberg : " The man," he says, " is light-
hearted and frivolous (evxepfc) to the last degree ; the nuns
pursued him with great cunning and drew him on. Perhaps
all this intercourse with them has rendered him effeminate,
or inflamed his passions, noble and high-minded though he
is." Melanchthon desiderates in him more " dignity," and
says that his friends (" we "), had frequently been obliged
to reprove him for his buffoonery (/Sw/xoAox/a)-1

In consequence of this unseemly behaviour with the nuns,
blamed even by his intimate friends, we can understand
that the professors of theology at Leipzig and Ingolstadt
came to speak of Luther with great want of respect.

Hieronymus Dungersheim, the Leipzig theologian, who had
before this had a tilt at Luther, wrote, with undisguised rudeness
in his "Thirty Articles," against "the errors and heresies" of
Martin Luther : " What are your thoughts when you are seated
in the midst of the herd of apostate nuns whom you have seduced,
and, as they themselves admit, make whatever jokes occur to
you ? You not only do not attempt to avoid what you declare is
so hateful to you [the exciting of sensuality], but you intention
ally stir up your own and others' passions. What are your
thoughts when you recall your own golden words, either when
sitting in such company, or after you have committed your
wickedness ? What can you reply, when reminded of your
former conscientiousness, in view of such a scandalous life of
deceit ? I have heard what I will not now repeat, from those who
had intercourse with you, and I could supply details and names.
Out upon your morality and religion, out upon your obstinacy
and blindness ! How have you sunk from the pinnacle of perfection
and true wisdom to the depths of depravity and abominable
error, dragging down countless numbers with you ! Where now
is Tauler, where the ' Theologia Deutsch ' from which you
boasted you had received so much light ? The ' Theologia '

1 See the whole Greek letter below, p. 176. The passage at /j.ovaxa.1
Tdffri /J.-nxwy fTTijSoi'Aei/o/^i'ai Trpoaecrwacrav avrbv, according to our opinion,
conveys the sense attributed to it above. Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, 1,
p. 736.

II. — L

146 THE APOSTASY

condemns as utterly wicked, nay, devilish through and through,
all that you are now doing, teaching and proclaiming in your
books. Glance at it again and compare. Alas, you ' theologian
of the Cross ! ' What you now have to show is nothing but the
filthiest wisdom of the flesh, that wisdom which, according to the
Apostle Paul (Rom. viii. 6 f.), is the death of the soul and the
enemy of God."

Uungersheim then quotes for his benefit the passage from the
Epistle of St. James concerning the " earthly and devilish
wisdom," notwithstanding that Luther treats this Epistle with
contempt ; his real reason for refusing to recognise it was that
it witnessed so strongly against his teaching. " What will you
say on the day of reckoning to the holy Father Augustine [the
reputed founder of the Augustinians] and the other founders
of Orders ? They come accompanied by a countless multitude
of the faithful of both sexes who have faithfully followed in the
footsteps of Christ, and in the way of the evangelical counsels.
But you, you have led astray and to destruction so many of their
followers. All these will raise their voices against you on the
dreadful Day of Judgment."1

The Leipzig University professor, in his indignation,
refers Luther to the warning he himself (in his sermons on
the Ten Commandments) had given against manners of
talking and acting which tempt to impurity ; he continues :
" And now you set aside every feeling of shame, you speak
and write of questionable subjects in such a disgraceful
fashion that decent men, whether married or unmarried,
cover their faces and fling away your writings with execra
tion. In order to cast dishonour upon the brides of Christ
you [in your writings], so to speak, lead unchaste men to
their couches, using words which for very shame I cannot
repeat."

He also answers his opponent's constant objection that
without marriage, on account of the impulse of nature,
people must needs be ever falling into sin. '' You forget
two things, viz. that grace is stronger than nature and that,
as Augustine rightly teaches, no one sins without free
consent. You exaggerate that impulse and speak of ' sin '
merely to exonerate your own behaviour and your doctrine.
In other matters you declare that everything is possible
to him who believes. You, like all other Catholics, were
formerly convinced that involuntary movements of the
flesh are not sinful unless a man consents to them ; they are
to the good a cross rather than a fault, and frequently only
1 Arliculi sive libdli triginta, etc., art. 17, p. 81 seq.

DR. ECK SCANDALISED 147

come from the devil and are not imputed to them at
all."1

This protest from Leipzig was reinforced in 1523 from Ingol
stadt by Dr. Johann Eck, who kept a keen eye on Luther and
pursued him with a sharp pen. In the following description of
Luther his bitter opponent complains not only of the frivolous
behaviour of the apostate monk in his former monastery which
the Elector had made over to him, but above all of the untruth and
dishonesty displayed in his writings. " More than once have I
proved," he says, " that he is a liar and hence that he has for
his father, him [the devil] of whom the Scripture says that he
is a liar and a murderer." " The fellow exudes lies from every
pore and is inconstancy itself (homo totus mendaciis scatens nil
constat). His teaching too is full of deception and calumny.
What he has just advanced, he presently rejects without the least
difficulty." " The dregs of those vices of which he is always
accusing the Christians, we rightly pour back upon his own head ;
let him drink himself of the cup he has mixed." " He heaps up a
mountain of evil on the Pope and the Church," but with " his
nun," — this is what he adds in a later edition in his indignation
with Luther's marriage — " he is really worshipping Asmodeus " ;
and this he is not ashamed to do in the old monastery of the
Augustinians, " where once pious monks served the Lord God,
and pious foundations, now alienated from their original purpose,
proclaimed the Christian virtues to the faithful."2

It is no pleasant task to examine Luther's sermons and
writings of those years, and to represent to ourselves the
turmoil of his mind at the time directly preceding his
marriage.

In 1524 he repeatedly discourses to his Wittenberg
hearers on his favourite theme, i.e. that man cannot control
himself in sexual matters, save by a miracle and with the
help of an " exceedingly rare grace." Speaking of impotence,
he says, that although he himself " by the grace of God does
not desire a wife," yet he would not like, as a married man,
to go through the experience of those who arc impotent.
If nature was not to be satisfied, " then death were pre
ferable." " I have no need of a wife," he says, " but must
provide a relief for your need."3 This was perhaps his
reply to those who said : " Oh, how the monk feels the
weight of his frock, how glad he would be to have a wife ! "4

1 Arliculi sive libelli triginta, etc., art. 17, p. 83.

2 Conclusion of the Tract " De Purgatorio," " Opp.," Pars II,
Ingolst., 1531, pp. 95', 96. Cp. volume iv., xxii. : " Luther and Lying."

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 15, p. 560 ff.

4 See above, p. 87.

148 THE APOSTASY

" Hitherto," he says, " the married state has been con
demned and styled a sensual state. . . . Alas, would that
all men were therein ... in support of it we have the
Word of God. . . . Those who have the grace to be chaste
are few, and among a thousand there is scarcely one to be
found."i

" I have frequently tried to be good," he says to his
hearers in 1524, " but the more I try the less I succeed. See
from this what free-will amounts to." And then, in excuse,
he unfolds his theology. " Sin urges so greatly that we long
for death. If to-day I avoid one sin, to-morrow comes
another. We arc obliged to fight without ceasing : the
Kingdom of Christ admits all, provided only they fight and
hold fast to the Head of the Kingdom, namely, [believe]
that Christ is the Redeemer. But if we exalt works, then
all is lost ! ... If we desire to attain to purity, this must
not be done by works, but Christ must be born in us anew
[by faith]. . , . Sin cannot harm (' mordere ') us ; the
power of sin is at an end. We hold fast to Him who has
conquered sin." " ' Summa, summarum,' works or no works,
all is comprised under faith and true doctrine. . . . But
do not let us sleep meanwhile and lull ourselves into
security "2

In 1523 Luther wrote on " the Devil's chastity," as he
called it, an exposition of the 7th chapter of the first
Epistle to the Corinthians, which the Papists used, so he
says, as a " fig-leaf " for celibacy and the monastic state.
In it he deals with the inspiring, spiritual teaching of the
Apostle of the Gentiles in the chapter which commences
with the words : " It is good for a man not to touch a
woman."3

This publication, which has been extolled as " the happy
inauguration of a healthy love of the things of sense,"4 was
preceded in 1522 by his sermon " On conjugal life." We
must here call to mind a similar earlier publication of 1519.
When, on the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, he preached
a " sermon on the conjugal state," this was at once printed

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 15, p. 667.

2 Ibid., pp. 431, 437.

3 " The 7th chapter," etc., " Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 92 ff.

4 In the dedication to Hans Loser zu Pretzsch, Hereditary Marshal
of Saxony (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 199).

"ON CONJUGAL LIFE" 149

by some stranger from notes made. Many who read it were
filled with astonishment at the unheard-of freedom of
speech displayed. Very soon Luther's friend, Christoph
Scheurl, expressed his disapproval of the tone : "I have
read many of Martin's writings which appeal to his best
friends more than his sermon on Matrimony, because they
are pure, humble, modest, measured and earnest, as beseems
a theologian."1 After this letter Luther declared that the
sermon had been printed without his knowledge, and with
many stupid mistakes, so that he was "ashamed" of it,2
and that same year (1519) he had it reprinted in an amended
form.3 It has been proved, however, that another sermon,
which had been taken down and printed at the same time as
the first sermon on Matrimony, was reported quite correctly; 4
hence the first printed edition of the sermon on Matrimony
was probably not as inexact as Luther afterwards pretended.

When we come to examine the teaching contained in the sermon
" On conjugal life " of the year 1522, we find, regarding the
marriage tie, notwithstanding the protestation that marriage
was to be considered sacred and indissoluble, such sentences as
the following : "If the wife is stubborn and refuses to fulfil her
duty as a wife," "it is time for the husband to say: If you
refuse, another will comply ; if the wife will not, then let the
maid come." She is however to be reprimanded first " before
the Church," and only then is the above counsel to be put in
force : "If she refuses, dismiss her, seek an Esther and let
Vasthi go. ... The secular power must here either coerce the
woman or make away with her. Where this is not done, the
husband must act as though his wife had been carried off by
brigands, or killed, and look out for another." In short, the
marriage is dissolved, and the husband is at liberty to marry the

1 On April 10, 1519, to Amsdorf ; see Enders, " Luthers Brief -
wechsel," 2, p. 16, n. 33.

2 To Johann Lang, April 13, 1519, " Brief wechsel," 2, p. 12.

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 2, p. 162 ff. ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 49 ff., 77 ff.
In the Preface we read : " There is a great difference between bringing
something to light by means of the living voice or by the dead letter "
(" Werke," Weim. ed., 2, p. 166). Of the marriages which were con
cluded secretly (see below) and which were then [previous to the
Council of Trent] regarded as valid by the Church, he says here :
" After one has secretly pledged his word to a woman and thereafter
takes another, either publicly or secretly, I do not yet know whether
all that is said and written on the subject is to be accepted or not."

4 " De duplici iustitia." Pastor Knaake remarks of the first
edition of this sermon, that it is plain " what careful notes of the re
former's sermons were made even then." See " Werke," Weim. ed., 2,
p. 144.

150 THE APOSTASY

maid.1 We must not, however, overlook the fact that in other
passages of the same sermon Luther gives some quite excellent
advice, whether against evil desires, or for the exercise of patience
in matrimony.

As one on whom the highest authority has been uncondition
ally conferred, he declares in the same sermon that he " rejects
and condemns " almost all the matrimonial impediments or pro- <
hibitions invented by the Pope.2 Virginity he refuses to reject
absolutely, but nevertheless he declares: "It is true that he^
who does not marry must lead an immoral life, for how can it be*1
otherwise ? " " without a special grace " it is utterly impossible.3

According to his ideas, the duties incident to matrimony
cannot be complied with without sin. " No conjugal duty can
be performed without sin," he teaches in conclusion,4 " though
God by His mercy overlooks it " — a statement which certainly
does not show any great esteem for matrimony, although Luther
is under the impression that he is raising the union of man and
wife to a higher plane. The Church had never taught that the
use of matrimony, which she looked upon as based on the order
of nature, involved any sin. Some few theologians had, it is
true, spoken of venial sin as unavoidable here, but these were
opposed by others, and, besides, the views of these theologians
concerning sinfulness differed widely from those of Luther.
Luther's erroneous notion that every feeling of concupiscence
was sinful, indeed mortally sinful, caused him to see grievous
sin even here.

In view of his severity in this matter, the freedom of speech
which he retains even in the revised edition (1519), and his coarse
treatment of the sexual subject is all the more surprising. His
tendency to throw off the fetters of decency is at times quite
needlessly offensive. Cochlseus remarks of this work : " Luther
here speaks in the most filthy way of the intercourse between
husband and wife, contrary to the laws of natural modesty."5

Others, and Cochlecus himself in his previous indecent
writings, bear witness to the excess of coarseness of this sort
which, partly as a consequence of Italian Humanism, had
found its way into German literature at that time. Few,
however, went so far as Luther. Several of his contempo
raries told him so openly, though they were themselves
accustomed to strong expressions. It is notorious that the
sixteenth century was accustomed to speak more bluntly

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 290 ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 526. For
the explanation of the phrase, " If the wife will not, let the maid come,"
see volume iii., xvii. 6.

2 Ibid., p. 280 = 515. 3 Ibid., p. 309 = 537 f.
4 Ibid., p. 304 = 541.

" Commeutaria," etc. Magunt., 1549, p. 61 : " Fcedissime
contra naturalem pudorem loquitur de commixtione maris etfcemince."

MEDIEVAL PLAIN SPEAKING 151

and openly than is at present usual. Yet in judging Luther's
case a circumstance which is often overlooked should also
be borne in mind, namely, that the standard by which he is
to be tried is not that of profane authors and literary men
of Humanistic leanings, but that of professedly religious
'writers. Luther not only professed to be a religious writer,
but also gave himself out as the introducer of a great reform
in faith and morals. From this standpoint the impropriety
of his speech must assuredly be more severely judged. He
employs by preference such language in his bitter and
violent polemics, seeking to make an impression upon the
lower classes by a naturalism not far removed from filthy
talking. The vulgar figures of speech of which he makes use
are all saturated with hate and rendered still more distasteful
by the unclean aspersions he is ever casting on his adver
saries ; from his manner of writing we can gather the
satisfaction he derives from seeing the defenders of virginity,
the religious and clergy, thus overwhelmed with filth.

Certain preachers of the late Middle Ages, religious and
others, for instance, Geiler von Kaysersberg, when dealing
with sexual matters sometimes went very far in their plain
speaking on the subject, yet their words were, without
exception, characterised by gravity and the desire of
saving souls. Their tone excludes any levity ; indeed, the
honesty and simplicity of these productions of the Middle
Ages impress the reader at every turn ; he may perhaps
be inclined to extol the greater delicacy of feeling which
obtains at the present day, but he will refrain from blaming
the less covert style of days gone by. Luther's " cynical "
language, however, impresses one as an attempt to pit nature,
with all its brutality, with its rights and demands, against
the more exalted moral aims of earlier ages ; the trend of
such language, as contemporary Catholics urged, was down
wards rather than upwards.

One tract of Luther's, which dates from about that time,
that " Against the Clerical State falsely so called of Pope
and Bishops," contains a chapter "Concerning Vows,"1
in which the descriptions are so coarse and the language so
nasty that Staupitz might well have considered even his
censure of certain earlier writings of Luther's not sufficiently
strong : " Your works are praised," he had told him, " by

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 146 ff. ; Erl. ed., 28, p. 186 ff.

152 THE APOSTASY

those who keep houses of ill-fame,"1 etc. Several particu
larly violent polemical tracts of those years, meant by Luther
for his theological adversaries generally, are so brimful of
words descriptive of the vilest parts and functions of the
human body, that it would be impossible to match them in
the writings of previous ages. His manner of speech was
considered by his foes to have reached the lowest depths of
thought and feeling. The vulgarity of his language was
held to display the utter depravity of his mind.

In polemics Luther was not merely the " greatest, but
also the coarsest writer of his century " ; such is the opinion
recently expressed by a Protestant historian.2

In the work dating from 1522, " Bulla Coenae Domini,
i.e. the Bull concerning the Evening feed of our most holy
Lord, the Pope,"3 he replies, with startling fluency, to the
menaces of this Papal Bull against all heretics, including
himself. Therein he describes the life and manners of the
Roman " prostitutes " with the express intention of
degrading all that Catholics considered most worthy of
respect and veneration. The Pope and his followers he
represents as indulging in every kind of sensuality, " rape,
seduction and fornication " to their heart's content.

Still more degrading are the opprobrious and insulting
figures of which he makes use in 1522 in his furious reply
" Against King Henry of England," who had attacked and
pilloried his teaching.4 In his tract it is his aim not only to
" lay bare the shame of the Roman prostitute before the
whole world, to her eternal disgrace," but also, as he says
further down, to reveal the " shameless audacity " of the
King of England, who is a defender of " the scarlet woman
of Rome, the tipsy mother of unchastity " ; the King,
"that fool," "lies and gibbers like the filthiest of prosti
tutes," and that, merely to defend the Pope and his Church,
" who are after all nothing more than pimp and procuress,

1 Luther to Staupitz, repeating his words, June 27, 1522, " Brief -
wechsel," 3, p. 406.

,2 Hausrath, " Luthers Leben," 1, p. 226.

t" Werke," Weim. eel., 8, p. 704 ff. ; Erl, ed. 24 2, p. 166 ff.
* " Contra Henricum regem Ariglise," 1522. " Werke," Weim.
ed., 10, 2, p. 172 ff. " Opp. Lat. var.," 6, p. 385 seq. The German
edition published by Luther later (" Werke," Erl. ed., 28, p. 344 ff.) is
abbreviated.

FRENZIED ABUSE 153

and the devil's own dwelling." All this abuse is crammed
into a few pages. To conclude, the King, according to
Luther's dictum and description, has been fitly consigned to
" the dunghcap with the Thomists, Papists and other such
like excrements." Side by side with all this w^e find his grand
assurances of his, Luther's, position as the messenger of God.
" Christ through me has begun His revelations of the
abomination in the Holy Place " ;x "I am convinced that
my doctrines have come down to me from Heaven,"2 etc.
The King he politely describes as a crowned donkey, an
infamous knave, an impudent royal windbag, the excrement
of hogs and asses. The King, according to him, is more
foolish than a fool ; His Majesty ought to be pelted with
mud ; he deserves nothing better, this stupid donkey, this
Thomistic hog, this lying rascal and carnival clown, who
sports the title of king. He is a nit which has not yet turned
into a louse, a brat whose father was a bug, a donkey who
wants to read the Psalter but is only fit for carrying sacks,
a sacrilegious murderer. He is a chosen tool of the devil,
a papistical sea-serpent, a blockhead and as bad as the worst
rogues whom indeed he outrivals ; an abortion of a fool, a
limb of Satan whose God is the devil — and so forth.

One of the unfortunate effects of his public struggle on
Luther wras, that he entangled himself more and more in a
kind of polemics in which his invective was only rivalled by
his misrepresentation of his opponents' standpoint and
arguments.

Preachers of the new faith frequently complained of his
insulting and unjust behaviour.

Thus Ambrose Blaurer, the spokesman of the innovation in
Wurtemberg, laments, in 1523, that Luther's enemies quite
rightly made capital out of the hateful language employed in his
controversial writings. " They wish to make this honey [Luther's
teaching] bitter to us because Luther is so sharp, pugnacious and
caustic, . . . because he scolds and rants. . . . Verily this has
often displeased me in him, and I should not advise anyone to
copy him in this respect. Nevertheless I have not rejected his
good, Christian teaching."3 Matthew Zell, also a Lutheran,
wrote in 1523 : " Nothing has turned me more against Luther
and pleased me less in him, and the same is true of other good

1 "Contra Henricum," p. 220 = 445, etc.

2 Ibid., p. 184 = 391.

3 " Schutzschrift an den Rath in Costnitz," in L. Hundeshagen,
" Beitrage zur Kirchenverfassungsgesch.," 1864, 1, p. 423.

154 THE APOSTASY

men, than the hard, aggressive and bitter vindications and
writings which he has composed against even his own friends,
not to speak of the Pope, the bishops and others whom he has
attacked so violently and so derisively that hardly has anything
sharper, more violent and mocking ever been read."1

Carlstadt, Luther's friend, and later theological opponent,
underwent such rough treatment at his hands, that a modern
Protestant writer on Carlstadt says of the chief work Luther
directed against him : Its characteristic feature is the wealth of
personal invective. . . . Though attempts have been made to
explain the terrible bitterness of his polemics by Luther's dis
position and the difficulty of his situation at the time the work
was composed, yet the deep impression left by his controversial
methods should not be overlooked. From that time forward
they were generally imitated by the Lutheran party, even in
disputes among themselves, and made to serve in lieu of true
discussion ; that such a procedure was entirely alien to Christian
charity seems not to have been noticed. The author also refers
and, with even greater reason, to the attacks against the
" Papists," " to the constantly recurring flood of abusive language,
insults, misrepresentations and suspicions which the reformer
poured upon his foes." He made use of " his extraordinary
command of language," to accuse Zwingli, after his death, most
maliciously of heresy.2

Amongst other opponents of the new faith, Erasmus, in a
writing addressed to Luther, says : " Scarcely one of your books
have I been able to read to the end, so great and insatiable is the
tendency to libel which they display (' insatiata conviciandi
libido '). If there were only two or three libels one might think
you had given vent to them without due consideration, but as it
is, your book swarms with abuse on every page (' scatet undique
maledictis '). You begin with it, go on with it, and end with it."3
Thomas Murner says, in a reply to Luther, as early as 1520, " I
see and understand that you are angry. Therefore it will be best
for me to keep cool in order that it may not be said that we both
are mad. You really go too far."4

It is true that Murner is very severe and satirical towards
Luther ; in fact, all Luther's opponents who wrote against him
frequently made use of stronger expressions than became the
cause they advocated, being incited and encouraged in this by
the language he employed. The Dominican, Conrad Kollin, in
his answer to Luther's attacks on the indissolubility of Christian
marriage, is a good instance in point.5 The Dominicans of

1 Rohrich, " Gesch. der Reformation im Elsass," 1, 1855, p. 294.

2 Barge, " Karlstadt," 2, pp. 223, 275, 445.

3 " Hyperaspistes," 1, " Opp.," ed. Basil., 9, pp. 1066, 1096. Cp.
Erasmus in " Corp. ref.," 1, p. 689.

4 " An den grossmechtigsten . . . Adel tiitscher Nation," Stras-
burg, 1520 (no name), Bl. K. 1.

5 " Adversus caninas Martini Lutheri nuptias," Colonise, 1530. By
Luther's " canine marriages," the author does not refer to Luther's

LUTHER'S -DIVINE ANGER" 155

Cologne were particularly irritated by Luther's insults, for at the
very outset of the struggle he had called them asses, dogs and
hogs.1

That Luther's scolding and storming grew worse and worse as
the years went on has been pointed out by the Protestant historian
Gustav Kriiger, who remarks that Melanchthon could never " see
eye to eye with him in this " ; Luther, however, did not " by any
means always reflect upon what he said, and he must not be held
responsible for all he flung among the people by word and pen."2

Luther's friend, Martin Bucer, strove to console himself in a
peculiar fashion for the insults and libels which increased as
Luther grew older. To the above-mentioned Ambrose Blaurer
he wrote concerning Luther's attacks on the Zwinglians : " These
are terrible invectives and even calumnies, but if you take into
account Luther's character, the evil is diminished. He is by
nature violent and accustomed to vituperation, and the abuse of
such men (' conviciari assuetorum convicia ') is not to be made so
much of as that of persons of a more peaceable temper." Two
years later, however, Bucer confesses to the same friend his real
concern regarding Luther's outbreaks of passion : "It thrills me
with a deadly fear (' tantum non exanimor ') when I think of the
fury that boils in the man whenever he is dealing with an oppo
nent. With what utter rage did he not fall on the [Catholic]
Duke George."3

In recent times Protestants have spoken with a certain admira
tion of the " heroic, yea, godlike," rage which always inspired
Luther's vituperation. One admirer emphasises the fact, that
he " was only too often right," because his Popish opponents
were altogether hardened, and " therefore it could do their souls
no harm to make use of sharp weapons against them " ; "it was
necessary to warn people against these obdurate enemies and to
unveil their wickedness with that entire openness and plainness
of speech which alone could impress his contemporaries. He
considered this his sacred duty and performed it with diligence."
" When he laid about him so mightily, so scornfully, so mercilessly,
his efforts were all directed against the devil." " Where it is
necessary for the salvation of souls," this theologian urges in
excuse, " true charity must not refrain from dealing severe
wounds, and Luther was obliged to describe as filth what actually

union with Catherine Bora, as is usually inferred, but, according
to the preface, to the numerous marriages rendered possible by Luther's
removal of the matrimonial impediments, so that it might happen
that one man could marry ten times even in the lifetime of the ten
women concerned. Cp. N. Paul us, " Die Dominikaner im Kampfe
gegen Luther," p. 126.

1 N. Paulus, ibid. He refers to Luther's " Correspondence," 1, p. 20 ;
2, p. 362 ; 6, p. 280.

1 " Philipp Melanchthon," 1905, p. 16, 4.

3 "Correspondence of the brothers Ambrose and Thomas Blaurer,"
ed. Schiess, 1, 1908, pp. 329, 476 ; Bucer to A. Blaurer, March 5, 1532,
and March 3, 1534.

156 THE APOSTASY

was such." " Thus we see why he not unfrequently chooses
dirty, common words and comparisons intentionally in order
adequately to express his horror. His eloquence becomes at
times a stream carrying with it a quantity of mud, dirt and filth
of every kind ; but had it not been for it this filth would never
have been swept away."1 All this is expressed, even more briefly
and drastically, by the Luther biographer, Adolf Hausrath, where,
in reply to Harnack's criticism of the " barbarity of Luther's
polemics," he says : " Since Luther's road led him to his goal
it must have been the right road, and fault-finders should hold
their tongues. . . . He knew the best language to make use of
in order to shake his Germans out of their stupid respect for the
Roman Antichrist." . . . Luther, the " prophet," treated his
foes " exactly as they deserved," save in the case of Zwingli.2

This was too much for Gustav Kawerau, another historian of
Luther. He pointed out, as against Hausrath, that, not to mention
others, Duke George and also Schwenckfeld had experienced such
treatment at Luther's hands as was certainly not " deserved."
If Hausrath " thanked God " for the barbarity of Luther's
prophetical polemics, he, for his part, felt compelled to " protest
against the proclamation of any prophetical morality which
would oblige us to set aside our own moral standard." " This
is to do Luther and his cause, a bad service," says Kawerau. . . .
" We are not going to venerate in Luther what was merely
earthly."3 Whether the " earthliness " of his libels and filthy
polemics clung only to Luther's feet, or whether it involved his
character and whole work, Kawerau does not say.

We may fairly ask whether on the whole the character
of the man has been more correctly gauged by those who
look upon his favourite kind of controversy as nothing more
than the disfiguring dirt under his feet, or by those others
who trace it back to the Arery nature of his titanic struggle
with the Church. Bucer, as we just saw, traced Luther's
outbursts to the violence of his temper, and Luther
himself frequently declares that he wrote " so severely,
intentionally and with well-considered courage."4 This he
looks upon as demanded by his position and, therefore, it

1 Wilhelm Walther, " Fiir Luther Wider Rom," 1906, p. 232 ff.

2 " Luthers Leben," 1, 1904, Preface, pp. x., xiii.

Dinners i^eoen, i, iyu4, Jfretace, pp.
3 " Deutsche Literaturztng.," 1904, col. 1613.

4 To an anonymous correspondent, August 28, 1522, " Werke,"
Erl. ed., 53, p. 149, answering the question, " Why I replied so harshly
to the King of Engelland." Principal reason : "" My method is not
one of compromise, yielding, giving in, or leaving anything undone."
" Do not be astonished that so many are scandalised by my writings.
This is intended to be so and must be so, that even the few may hold
fast to the Gospel." " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 447.

LUTHER'S PORTRAIT 157

is, as he thinks, " well done."1 According to Wilhelm
Walther, Luther had chosen the " heroic method of develop
ment," i.e. " of isolating himself as it were from the whole
world " ; his standpoint was not " within the grasp " of
the world of his opponents.2 Thus, unless he wished to
forsake his cause, he had to carry it through single-handed,
straining every nerve and having recourse to vituperation
the like of which had never hitherto been heard.

We shall examine elsewhere the psychological questions
involved in this sort of polemics (vol. iv., xxvi. 3). The
above will suffice concerning the influence exercised on his
literary activity by the public position which Luther
had assumed.

4. Further Traits towards a Picture of Luther.
Outward Appearance. Sufferings, Bodily and Mental

A change had gradually taken place in Luther's outward
appearance even previous to his stay at the Wartburg. By
the time he had returned to Wittenberg his former leanness
had gone and he was inclined to be stout.

Johann Kessler, a Swiss pupil who saw him often in 1522
and who frequently played the lute to cheer him, writes in
his " Sabbata " : " When I knew Martin at the age of forty-
one in 1522 he was by nature somewhat portly, of an upright
gait, inclined rather backward than forward, and always
carried his face heavenward."3

Albert Burer, who was also studying at Wittenberg after
Luther's return from the Wartburg, praises his amiability,
his pleasant, melodious voice, and his winning manner of
speech.4 Thomas Blaurcr, then his enthusiastic disciple,
is also full of praise of his kindly, attractive and sym-

1 Cp. Luther to the Elector Johann, April 10, 1531, " Werke,"
Erl. ed., 54, p. 223 (" Brief wechsel," 8, p. 388), concerning his two
pamphlets, " Warnunge an seine lieben Deudschen," and " Auff das
vermeint keiserlich Edict": "I am only sorry that [the style] is
not stronger and more violent." The Elector will "readily perceive
that my writing is far, far, too dull and soft towards such dry bones
and dead branches [as the Papists]." But I was "neither drunk nor
asleep when I wrote."

2 " Fiir Luther Wider Rom," p. 231.

3 " Sabbata," St. Gallen, 1902, p. 65.

4 Letter of Burer, March 27, 1522, in Baum, " Capito und Butzer,"
I860, p. 83, and in " Brief wechsel des Beatus Rhenanus," ed. Horawitz
and Hartf elder, 1866, p. 303.

158 THE APOSTASY

pathetic manner towards those who came under his influence
and to whom he ever behaved in a simple and natural
fashion.1 Neither of them, however, describes his facial
appearance.

From the likenesses of him to be referred to below it
appears that his face usually wore an expression of energy
and defiance. His chin and mouth protruded slightly and
gave an impression of firmness ; a slight frown denoted
irritability ; over his right eye there was a large wart ; a
lock of curly hair overhung his forehead. His " dark eyes
blinked and twinkled like stars so that it wras difficult to
look at them fixedly."2 (J. Kessler.) As remarked above,
his deportment was upright and almost defiant.

Of what Luther must have been, judging by his descriptions,
not one of the portraits which have come down to us gives
any good idea.3 This sounds strange, as the art of portrait
painting was already very highly developed in Luther's day,
whilst his likenesses were in great demand and were de
spatched from Wittenberg to every quarter in order to
increase his popularity. Diirer and Holbein, who have left
us characteristic and faithful likenesses of Melanchthon,
never employed their brush or pencil in depicting Luther.
The death-mask which we still have was not taken till four
days after Luther's death from a stroke, i.e. after decomposi
tion had already made some progress, while the portrait of
the dead man painted in haste by Lucas Fortenagel is almost
terrifying and betrays a very unpractised hand.4

Lucas Cranach the elder, as is well known, sketched or
painted several likenesses of Luther, and as the two were very
intimate with each other we might have anticipated some
thing reliable. He was, however, not sufficiently true to

1 Thomas Blaurer, in a letter to his brother Ambrose, dated Feb
ruary 15, 1521, calls Luther " Pater pientissimus " ; previously, on
January 4, he speaks of him as " christianissimus et sapientissimus vir,"
and extols the fact that " omnia contempsit prceter Christum ; prceter
Christum nihil metuit nee sperat et id tamen ita humiliter, ut dare sentias
nullos esse hie fucos." " Correspondence of the Brothers Blaurer," 1,
1908, pp. 33, 29 f.

2 Cp. vol. i., p. 279, the " Dicta Melanchthonia " on Luther's eyes.
Catholic contemporaries called them diabolical. See e.g. Aleander in
Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 500.

3 Cp. for what follows H. Bohmer, " Luther im Lichte der neueren
Forschung," 2, 1910, p. 4 f. Some of the matter contained in the first
edition is omitted in the second.

4 See Denifle-Weiss, I2, PI. IX

LUTHER'S PORTRAIT 159

life ; he suppressed what he considered to be defects in his
sitter, and, in spite of his artistic talent, he did not possess
the special qualifications for faithfully reproducing in a
portrait the expression of the soul. In his pictures of Luther
we are at a loss to find certain traits mentioned in the
accounts we possess ; the artist introduces into the face an
expression of mildness and tenderness which was foreign to
Luther. Neither is it a fact that we have hundreds of
pictures from his studio, as is so often stated, for of all the
portraits and engravings ascribed to Cranach only five can
be considered as absolutely genuine, the copper plates of
1520 and 1521, * then the " Squire George " of the Wartburg
in the Leipzig Town Library, and two portraits in the
Kaufmann Gallery in Berlin. " If we examine the abso
lutely genuine ' Cranachs ' we at once notice that they
have nothing in common with the typical Luther features
[of a later day]." From these original likenesses down to the
pictures of Luther which circulate to-day there are many
steps. The transformation was carried further and further,
though the " broad, peasant face " and the " powerful jaw "
were destined to remain. Nearly all these pictures represent
an elderly man, inclined to corpulence, with somewhat
blurred features, with surprisingly abundant curly hair
and small, kindly eyes.

This, the typical Luther of to-day, appears perhaps for
the first time in the so-called " Epitaphium Lutheri" a wood
cut which was made after Luther's death by the elder
Cranach's son, Lucas Cranach the younger. The type
in question became very generally known owing to the
picture of Luther painted nine years after his death by the
younger Cranach for an altar-piece in the parish church at
Weimar, although in this likeness, which has been so
frequently copied, there may still be found some traces of
the bold, warrior features of the real Luther. Bohmer, the
Protestant historian, remarks: "In the most popular of
these modern ' ideal pictures,' viz. the oleograph of Luther
in the fur cappa which ' adorns ' so many churches, even
the Doctor's own Catherine would be unable to recognise
her Martin."

The pictured Luther has become almost a fable among
Protestants. This may well make us suspicious of the pen-
1 The latter are shown in Bohmer, p. 2. Cp. ibid., p. 37.

160 THE APOSTASY

picture of him now spread abroad by so many of his followers
and admirers. Is it in the least trustworthy ? Here again
it is the Protestant authority cited above who complains :
" The literary Luther-portraits, though strikingly similar,
are all more or less unlike the original. In the strict sense
they arc not portraits at all, but presentments of a type."

The strain of such strenuous literary work, in the case of
one whose public life was so full of commotion as Luther's,
could not fail to tax the most healthy nervous system. We
can only wonder how he contrived to cope with the excite
ment and incessant labour of the years from 1520 to 1525
and to continue tirelessly at the task till his life's end.

Amongst his works in those years were various contro
versial writings printed in 1523, for instance, that against
Cochlseus ; also tracts such as those " On the Secular
Power " and " On the Adoration of the Sacrament " ;
also the Instructions on the Supper, on Baptism and
on the Liturgy, etc., and, besides these, voluminous
circular-letters, translations from, and extensive com
mentaries on, the Bible. There was also a vast multitude of
sermons and private letters. Among the writings on widely
differing subjects dealt with by Luther in 1524-25 the
following may be specified : " On Christian Schools," " Two
Unequal Commands of the Emperor," " On Trade and
Usury," " On the Abomination of silent Mass," " Against the
Heavenly Prophets," " Against the Murderous Peasants,"
" On the Unfreedom of the Will." His publications
in the three years 1523-25 number no less than seventy-
nine. His attacks on the vow of chastity, and on celibacy,
constitute a striking feature of many of his then writings.
Obstinacy in the pursuit of one idea, which characterises
the German, degenerates in Luther's case into a sort of
monomania, which would have made his writings unread
able, or at least tedious, had not the author's literary gifts
and unfortunately the prurient character of the subject-
matter appealed to many. The haste in which all this was
produced has left its mark everywhere.1

1 None but an expert can have any idea of the " speed with which
Luther wrote. He was a born stenographer." It should be noted
" that the haste with which he wrote is far less noticeable in the manu
scripts which have been preserved than in the writings themselves
with their countless defects. Outside a small circle there are but few

THE FRENCH DISEASE 161

In those years Luther's nerves frequently avenged them
selves by headaches and attacks of giddiness for the un
limited demands made upon them. Irregular meals and the
want of proper attention to the body in the desolate " black
monastery " of Wittenberg also contributed their quota.
Among the bodily disorders which often troubled him we
find him complaining of a disagreeable singing in the ears ;
then it was that he began to suffer from calculus, a malady
which caused him great pains in later years and of which we
first hear in 152G. We reserve, however, our treatment of
Luther's various ailments till we come to describe the close
of his life. (Sec vol. v., xxxv. 1.)

We cannot, however, avoid dealing here with a matter
connected with his pathology, which has frequently been
discussed in recent times. The delicate question of his
having suffered from syphilis was first broached by the
Protestant physician, Friedrich Kiichenmeister, in 1881, and
another Protestant, the theologian and historian Theodore
Kolde, has brought it into more prominent notice by the
production of a new document, which in 1904 was un
fortunately submitted to noisy discussion by polemical
writers arid apologists in the public press.

Kiichenmeister wrote : " As a student Luther was on the
whole healthy. From syphilis, the scourge of the students and
knights at that time (we have only to think of Ulrich von Hutten),
he never suffered, « I preserved,' he says, 'my chastity.' "l

The inference is, however, not conclusive, since syphilis is now
looked upon as an illness which can be contracted not merely by
sexual intercourse, but also in other ways. There was therefore
no real reason to introduce the question of chastity, which the
physician here raises.

As regards, however, the question of infection, every unbiassed
historian will make full allowance for the state of that age.

to-day who could fall under the magical influence of Luther's writings,
and not weary of listening to the monotonous song of the ' Witten
berg nightingale ' " (K. A. Meissinger, in a review of Ficker's edition
of the Commentary on Romans, "Frankfurter Ztng.," 1910, No. 300).
The expression " Wittenberg nightingale " occurs, as is well known,
in a poem by Luther's Nuremberg admirer, Hans Sachs.

1 " Luthers Krankengesch.," 1881, p. 122. " Commentar ad Gal.,"
1531, 1, p. 107. In this passage quoted by Denifle, I2, p. 391,
Luther speaks of his great zeal in doing penance in the monastery, and
adds a little further on (p. 109) : " So long as I was a Popish monk,
externe non eram sicut ceteri homines, raptores, iniusti, adulteri, sed
servabam castitatem, obedientiam et paupertatem," which, of course,
only means : "I was a good religious."

II. — M

162 THE APOSTASY

Owing to the great corruption of morals which prevailed, syphilis,
or the " French sickness, malum Francice," as it was called,
raged everywhere, but especially in France and Italy. The
danger of infection was, as Luther himself points out, extremely
great, so that, as he says, even " boys in the cradle are plagued
with this disease." So prevalent was this formerly unknown
malady that " friends wished it to each other in jest."1 He sees
in the spread of the " scabies gallica " a manifest Divine judg
ment for the growing lack of the fear of God, and looks upon it
as a sign of the approaching end of the world.2 In his " Chronicle "
he says that, in 1490, a new illness, the French sickness, made its
appearance, " one of the great signs of the coming of the Last
Day." 3

The new material furnished by Theodore Kolde in his
" Analecta Lutherana " consists of a medieal letter of
Wolfgang Rychardus to Johann Magenbuch dated June 11,
1523, taken from the Hamburg Town Library, and is of a
character to make one wonder whether Luther did not at
one period suffer from syphilis, at any rate in a mild form.4

The circumstances of the letter are as follows : Luther was
recovering from a serious attack of illness which he himself
believed to be due to a bath.5 We learn from Melanchthon that
this indisposition was accompanied by high fever.6 On May 24,
however, the patient was able to report that he was better, but
that he "was over-burdened with distracting labours."7 At
that time a certain Apriolus, a renegade Franciscan and zealous
disciple of Luther's (his real name was Johann Eberlin), was
staying with Luther at Wittenberg. He forwarded detailed
accounts of Luther's illness to a physician with whom he was
intimate, Wolfgang Rychardus, at Ulm. Rychardus was also a
great admirer of the Wittenberg professor and at the same time,
as it would appear, a devoted friend of Melanchthon's. In conse
quence of Apriolus's reports he wrote the medical letter now in

1 Cordatus, " Tagebuch," p. 38.

2 In the interpretation of Genesis iii. 17 ; " Opp. Lat. exeg.," 1,
p. 263. Cp. Cordatus, " Tagebuch,'.' p. 38, 481, where Luther makes
use of the usual word " Franzos " for the malady. In the latter
passage Luther declares himself ready to exchange his very painful
gout for this malady, or even for the plague, were that God's will.
Hence he was then, i.e. in his later years, free from it.

3 German translation of the " Chronicle " in " Werke," ed. Walch,
14 ; the passage, ibid., p. 1277.

4 " Analecta Lutherana," p. 50.

5 To Spalatin, April 25, 1523, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 137.

6 Melanchthon to Hammelberg, April 29, 1523, " Corp. ref.," 1,
p. 615.

T To Nic. Hausmann, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 144 : " Corpore satis
bene. valeo."

THE FRENCH DISEASE 163

question to another physician then studying at Wittenberg,
Johann Magenbuch of Blaubeuren, who also was intimate with
the Wittenberg Reformers, had helped Melanchthon in his Greek
lexicon with regard to the medical side, and was then in attend
ance on Luther. It was Magenbuch who had first brought
Rychardus into touch with Luther, and both had already ex
changed letters concerning him.1 Rychardus remained Luther's
friend at a later date.2

Rychardus wrote to the physician attending Luther, that he
had heard of the illness of the new " Elias " (Luther), but now
rejoices to learn he is convalescent. It was evident that God was
preserving him. In the meantime, out of pity [in a letter not
extant], Apriolus had given him various particulars concerning
Luther's illness and his sleeplessness. He points out that it was
not sufficient that Luther should only enjoy some sleep every
second night, though, of course, his mental exertion explained
his sleeplessness, hence, as a careful physician, he recommends
his friend Magenbuch to give the patient a certain sleeping-
draught, which he also describes, and with which Magenbuch
("qui medicum agis") must already be acquainted. "But if,"
he says, "the pains of the French sickness disturb his sleep,"
these must be alleviated by means of a certain plaster, the
mysterious components of which, comprising wine, quicksilver
(" vinum sublimatum "), and other ingredients he fully describes ;
this would induce sleep which was absolutely essential for the
restoration of health. " For God's sake take good care of Luther,"
he concludes, and adds greetings to Apriolus his informant.3

Divergent interpretations have naturally been placed upon
this letter by Luther's friends and enemies. It might have

1 See Enders in " Luthers Brief wechsel," 4, pp. 87, 88 n.

2 Luther sent him a copy of his " Chronicle," above mentioned, as
a present on May 15, 1544 (Seidemann, " Lutherbriefe," p. G8).

3 The text in question runs as follows : " De Helia Luthero vulgata
est apud (nos) creberrima Jama morbo laborare hominem. Oiengerius
tamen ex Lipsiis rediens nundinis re/ert foeliciter, convaluisse scilicet
Heliam. qui nos omnes mira affecit Icetitia. Clamabant adversarii pseu-
doregem interiisse de Sickingero gloriantes, pseudopapam autem cegrotum
propediem obiturum. Deus tamen, cuius res agitur, melius consuluit.
Apriolus tamen multa mihi ex compassions de Lutheri nostri mala vale-
tudine adscripsit, et inter reliqua de nimia vigilia, qua dominus Helias
molestetur. Non est mirum, hominem tot cerebri laboribus immersum, in
siccitatem cerebri incidere, unde nimia causatur vigilia. Tu autem, qui
medicum agis, non debes esse oblitus, si lac mulieris mixtum cum oleo
violato in commissuram coronalem ungatur, quam familiariter humectet
cerebrum ad somnumque disponat ; et si cum hoc dolores MALI FRANCIE
somno impedimento fuerint, mitigandi sunt cum emplastro, quod fit ex
medulla cervi, in qua coquuntur vermes terrce cum modico croco et vino
sublimato. Hec si dormituro apponuntur, somnum conciliant, qui somnus
maxime est necessarius ad restaurandam sanitatem. Nam quod caret
alterna requie durabile non est. Cura nobis Lutherum propter Deum,
cuius fldei me commenda et charitati. Melanchthonis (?) notum fac
Apriolumque saluta." (From the " Cod. Rych." in the Wolff collec
tion of the Hamburg Town Library, p. 560.)

164 THE APOSTASY

sufficed to detail the circumstances and the contents of the letter,
did not the somewhat violent objections raised against the view,
that, owing to the information given him by Apriolus, Rychardus
took Luther to be suffering from the French sickness, render
some further remarks necessary.

It has been said that Luther was not ill at all at the time
Rychardus wrote, but had recovered his health long before. It is
true that in June, 1523, his life was no longer in danger, since
Rychardus had heard from Giengerius, who came from the fair at
Leipzig, that Elias had recovered (" convaluiase Heliam"); but
then his friend Apriolus forwarded the above disquieting accounts
(" multa de valetudine adscripsit ") which led Rychardus to write
his letter, which in turn is an echo of his informant's letter. The
circumstance that Luther was on the whole much better is there
fore, as a matter of fact, of no importance. It has also been said
that " Rychardus can be understood as speaking in general
terms without any reference to Luther." According to this view
of the matter the physician's meaning would amount to this :
" Luther must be made to sleep by means of the remedy well
known to you [and which he describes], but if along with it (' cum
hoc ') the pains of the French sickness should disturb anyone's
sleep, they must be allayed by a plaster," etc. It is surely all
too evident that such an explanation is untenable.

Again, the word " if " has been emphasised ; Rychardus does
not say that Luther has syphilis, but that if he has it. But, as a
matter of fact, he does not write " if he be suffering from it," but,
" if this malady disturbs his sleep " ; taken in connection with the
account of the illness, supplied by Apriolus, the most natural
(we do not, however, say necessary) interpretation to be placed
on his words is that he was aware the patient wras suffering from
this malady, perhaps only slightly, yet sufficiently to endanger
his sleep. " But if, when use is made of the sleeping-draught
indicated, syphilis shou!4 prevent his sleeping," is surely a
proviso which no physician would make in the case of a patient
in whom syphilitic symptoms were not actually present ;
Rychardus would never have spoken of the " new Elias " in this
way unless he had reason to believe in the existence of the malady.
It would have been far-fetched to introduce the subject of so dis
gusting a complaint, and much more natural to speak of other
commoner causes which might disturb sleep.

It must, however, be allowed, that, both before and after this
letter was written, no trace of such an illness occurs in any of the
documents concerning Luther. The " molestice " twice mentioned
previously, which by some have been taken to refer to this
malady, have, as a matter of fact, an altogether different mean
ing, which is clear from the context.1

1 In a letter to Staupitz, February 20, 1519, " Brief wechsel," 1,
p. 431, Luther complains of " molestice," which were not physical
sufferings but the weight of his position and undertaking. In the letter
to Melanchthon, July 13, 1519, " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 189, he means
by the " other molestia " which tormented him, the constipation which

PRESSING ANXIETIES 165

In addition to his bodily ailments, the result more
particularly of extreme nervous agitation, the indefatigable
worker was over and again tormented with severe attacks of
depression and sadness.

They were in part due to the sad experiences with his
followers and to the estrangement — now becoming more
and more pronounced — of his party from the fanatical
Anabaptists ; in part also to the alarming reports of the
seditious risings of the peasants ; also to his deception
concerning the Papacy, which, far from falling to pieces
" at the breath of the true Gospel," had asserted its
authority and even strengthened it by reforms such as those
commenced under Hadrian VI. It was, however, principally
his " interior struggles," and the pressing reproaches of his
conscience concerning his work as a whole, which rendered
him a prey to melancholy. This mental agony never ceased ;
the inward voice he had heard in the Wartburg, and which
had pierced his very soul with the keenness of a sword,
continued to oppress him : " Are you alone wise ? Supposing
that all those who follow you are merely dupes."1

If he sought for distraction in cheerful conversation, this
was merely to react against such gloomy thoughts. The
more and more worldly life he began to lead may also be
regarded as due in some measure to the effort on his part to
escape these moods. We may also find in them the psycho
logical explanation of the excesses he commits in his
attacks upon the Church, his very violence serving to
relieve his feelings and to reassure him. His customary
defiance enables him to surmount all obstacles : the external
anxieties caused by his adversaries and the interior tempta
tions which he ascribes to the devil. " I have triumphed
over him [the devil]," he exclaims confidently, " who has
more power and cunning in his smallest claw than all the
popes, kings and doctors. . . . My doctrine shall prevail
and the Pope fall, in defiance of the gates of hell and all the
powers of the air, the earth and the sea."2

" together with temptations of the flesh had prevented him for a whole
week from writing, praying, and studying." Cp. " Briefwechsel," 3,
p. 171: " Malum auctum est, quo Vormacice laborabam : durissima
patior excrementa, ut nunquam in vita, ut remedium desperaverim."
To Spalatin, June 10, 1521. Cp. above, p. 95.

1 Above, p. 79 ff. Cp. also volume iii., xviii.

2 " Contra Henricum," " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 184 ; " Opp.
Lat. var.," 6, p. 391.

166 THE APOSTASY

We feel it our duty to complete this remarkable picture of
passion, defiance and struggle by some few additional traits
taken from Luther's writings at that time.

On the question of the vow of chastity and priestly celibacy a
rude though perfectly justified answer was supplied him by many
writers on the Catholic side, yet he ignored them all, and on the
contrary proceeded on his way with even greater fury and passion.
He proclaims a sacred command to marry, a command not one
whit less binding than the Decalogue. Here, as in the case of
other questions of morals and dogma, he is carried forward by
passion, rather than by a calm recognition of the truth. He
exclaims somewhat later : " Just as it is a matter of stern
necessity and strict command when God says : ' Thou shalt not
kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery,' so there is also stern
necessity and strict command, nay a still greater necessity and
yet more stringent command : ' Thou shalt marry, Thou shalt
have a wife, Thou shalt have a husband.' For there stands God's
Word (Gen. i. 27), ' God created man . . . male and female he
created them ' ! The consciences of the unmarried must be
importuned, urged and tormented until they comply, and are
made at length to say : ' Well, if it must be so, then let it so be.' "*

When it was pointed out to him, that in the New Testament
celibacy embraced from love of God was presented as one of the
evangelical counsels, he straightway denied both the existence
and the authority of the evangelical counsels. And when his
opponents replied that Christ frequently counselled acts of
great virtue without making of them strict commands, but mere
counsels of perfection, for instance with the words : "If one
smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also,"
Luther will have it that Christ, even here, gave the strict com
mand to allow ourselves to be smitten also on the left cheek.

In his attack on the Mass, in his excitement, he went so far as
to state: No sin of immorality, nay not even "manslaughter,
theft, murder and adultery is so harmful as this abomination of
the Popish Mass." He adjured the authorities to take steps
against the blinded parsons " who run to the altar like hogs to
the trough," " the shame of the scarlet woman of Babylon "
must be laid bare in order that the " dreadful anger of God may
not be poured forth like a glowing furnace upon the negligence "
of those who fail to use the " sword entrusted to them by God."
These were his words to the people in a sermon of the year 1524. 2

How deeply his experiences with the fanatics excited and
enraged him is apparent, for instance, from this statement con
cerning Carlstadt : " He is no longer able to go back, there is no

1 Preface to Justus Menius's book, " (Economia Christiana," 1529,
" Werke," Weim. ed., 30, 2, p. 61 ; Erl. ed., 63, p. 279 (" Briefwech-
sel," 7, p. 73). The preface is in the shape of a letter to Hans Metzsch,
the Captain of the Wittenberg garrison, an unmarried man whom
Luther urged in vain to marry.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 15, p. 773 f.

A REFORMER'S TROUBLES 167

hope for this orator, inflated and hardened as he is by the applause
of the crowd " (" plausn vulgi inflatus et induratus "J.1 Carlstadt
and his followers, according to him, "are always on the look-out
for a chance of incriminating the evangel."2 Luther in these
struggles felt bitterly that he himself, the originator of the great
movement, had already become to many a byword and a jest,
" a target for malice, for deceit, for buffoonery — by reason of my
simplicity."3

It is true he had a fellow-sufferer at his side, Melanchthon, who
at that time " was brought to the brink of the grave "4 by cares
and want of sleep ; yet none of his friends suffered as much as he,
for the whole burden of care settled upon him. To-day he has
to dispute with a "sly and cunning monk," who ill-uses his wife
because she desires a separation, and, then, when she actually
leaves him, wishes to marry another ; Luther flings the desired
permission after him ("if others will allow him so to do, I am
content ").5 On the morrow he has to go to Wittenberg to take
steps " against a new sort of prophets arrived from Antwerp,"
who deny the Godhead of the Holy Ghost, which, they say, is not
founded on the "Word,"6 On the day following he is assailed
with complaints regarding the encroachments of the Lutheran
authorities.

" How does Satan rage," he cries in view of the above, " how
he rages everywhere against the Word ! "7

When the news of the fanatics with their revelations concerning
the " Word " arrived from Thuringia, and of the iconoclastic
tumult at Rothenburg-on-the-Tauber, he again exclaims :
" Thomas Miinzer at Miihlhausen, not only teacher and preacher,
but also king and emperor ! " " Thus Satan rages against Christ
now that he finds Him to be the stronger." '

It was formerly believed, he says at this time, that the world
was full of noisy and turbulent ghosts and hobgoblins, and that
they were the souls of the dead, a delusion which has been dis
pelled to-day by the evangel, " for we know now that they are
not the souls of men but merely naughty devils." " But now
that the devil sees that all his noise and storming is no longer of
any avail, he acts in a different manner and begins to rage and
storm in his members, i.e. in the godless [and false teachers],
hatching in them all sorts of wild and shady beliefs and doctrines." 9

1 To Spalatin, March 4, 1525, " Briefwcchsel," 5, p. 133.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid., March 23, 1525, ibid., 5, p. 140.

4 Ibid., March 12, 1525, " Briefwcchsel," 5, p. 138.

5 Ibid., April 15, 1525, "Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 290, "Brief-
wechsel," 5, p. 157.

6 Ibid., March 27, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 147.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid., April 3, 1525, ibid., p. 152. To Amsdorf, April 11, 1525,
ibid., p. 156.

9 To the Christians at Antwerp, beginning of April, 1525, " Werke,"
Weim. ed., 18, p. 547 ; Erl. ed., 53, p. 342 (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 151).

168 THE APOSTASY

" Yea, verily this rage of Satan everywhere against the Word
is nob the least significant sign that the end of the world is
approaching." At that time, scarcely ten years after the dis
covery of the evangel, this opinion was already firmly fixed in
his mind. " Satan seems to be aware of it, hence his extra
ordinary outburst of anger."1 A confirmation of the approach
of Judgment Day was discerned by Luther in the circumstance
that, as he thought, " the princes were falling " (the French
king had been taken captive by Charles V), " that the Emperor
would also fall in the end," and that " more of the princes wrill
fall if they permit the people to grow so audacious." " These
are greater signs that many believe."2 The conjunction of the
planets is also not to be overlooked, although, he admitted, " I
do not understand much about them ; the bloody western sun
would seem to indicate the king of France, another in the centre,
the Emperor ; Philip [Melanchthon] is also of this opinion ; both
together foretell the end of the world."3

He declares later that it " may occur any day," and that actual
signs of extraordinary magnitude will be seen " in the sun and
moon," although we have " already sufficient warning in the
sun " ; above all, according to him, " the sign among men "
[who shall wither away for fear and expectation, Luke xxi. 26]
has already been fulfilled : "I am entirely of opinion that we
have already experienced it. The evil Pope with his preaching has
done very much towards this, namely by greatly affrighting
pious minds. . . . The forgiveness of sin through Christ had
disappeared." We were "frightened to death at Christ, the
Judge." " Owing to the preaching of the evangel I am of opinion
that this sign is in great part passed, in the same way that I hold
most of the other signs in the heavens to have also already taken
place."4

His scruples of conscience and the " inward struggles "
referred to above Luther accustomed himself more and
more to regard as the voices of the Evil One. He fancied it
was the Good Spirit who taught him to despise them. It
was only the Papists who were deluded and led astray by
" Satan." " There," he writes in 1522, viz. among the
Papists, " the true masterpiece of Satan is discernible, for
he transforms himself into an angel of light. As in the
beginning he wished to be equal to the Most High, so now
he does not cease to pursue the same aim by deceiving the
sons of unbelief with godly words and deeds. Thus does

1 To Spalatin, March 27, 1525, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 147.

2 Ibid., March 11, 1525, ibid., p. 136.

3 Ibid., March 27, 1525, ibid., p. 147.

4 " Werke," Erl. ed., I2, p. 19 ff. Sermon of 1533, the second in
the "Postils."

AMSDORF THE COMFORTER 169

he make the Pope his instrument." " To what an abyss,"
he exclaims, " is he not capable of dragging down the Church
by means of his sophists seated in the professorial chairs."1
When the thought of the day of reckoning or remorse of
conscience for their infidelity to the Church awoke either
in himself or in his followers, this was to be silenced as the
voice of the wicked angel. Uxorious renegades from the
religious Orders and the priesthood, who were now assailed
by doubts, he consoles by means of his own moral dialectics,
telling them they should go " forward with a strong con
science in order to be able to withstand the devil at the hour
of death." They were to " arm themselves with the Word
of God " against the devil ; " you will stand in need of it,
but rely upon this, that it is the Word of God, Who cannot
lie ; read this [my own] little book ' On Vows ' carefully
and strengthen yourself as best you can," for the " devil will
work against you with your vow for all it is worth and make
out your marriage and freedom to be sinful."2 Here he is
establishing a new school for the formation of consciences.

How greatly the " inward struggles " pressed upon him
in those years, notwithstanding such teachings and his own
practice, is plain from two incidents of which we hear
by chance.

On one occasion, in a letter written in March, 1525, he invites
his old friend, Amsdorf of Magdeburg, to come to Wittenberg
that he may assist him " with comfort and friendly offices,"
because, as he complains, he is " very sad and tempted." The
captain of the garrison, Hans von Metzsch, is also, so he reports,
in a very troubled state of mind : he too looks for Amsdorf's
help, arid will put a carriage at the disposal of the Magdeburg
guest for the journey here and back.3 As Luther later, in 1529,
urged Metzsch, who till then had remained a bachelor, to marry
forthwith and so save himself mental trouble,4 it has been assumed
by Protestants that Metzsch was tormented by temptations con
cerning marriage as early as 1525, and that, as Luther in his letter
to Amsdorf places himself in the same category with him,5 " it was
plain of what nature Luther's temptations were." It is certainly

" Contra Henricum regem," " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p.
205 f. ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 6, p. 424.

2 " On the two kinds of the Sacrament," 1522, " Werke," Weim.
ed., 10, 2, p. 35 ; Erl. ed., 28, p. 311.

3 On March 12, 1525, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 138.

4 " Werke," Erl. ed., 63, p. 277 (" Brief wechsel," 7, p. 73). See
above, p. 166, n. 1.

6 " Nos afflicti satis et tentati sumus."

170 THE APOSTASY

possible that Luther meant by what he styles his " temptations,"1
the struggles he had to sustain on account of the question of his
marriage, which was pressing upon him more and more heavily.
He elsewhere admits his fear lest he should lower himself and his
cause in the eyes of many by his marriage, while on the other
hand he feels himself impelled to matrimony by the impulse of
nature. It was not merely concern for the good name of the
evangel (" We are a spectacle to the world," etc.)2 which troubled
him. There is no doubt that these " temptations," if they really
referred to matrimony, consisted in scruples of conscience which
he had not yet mastered. We can readily understand that it was
only gradually, and by means of strong representations from
within and from his friends, that he was at length able to over
come the hesitation which had persisted from his Catholic days
when his opinions had been so different.

Another instance of the effect of his temptations on his tempera
ment is related in the Notes of his physician Ratzeberger. 3 The
details refer to 1525 or 1524.4 Katzeberger says that Luther
" had privatim to endure great attacks of Sathana," and had
" frequently been disturbed by the demon in various ways when
studying and writing in his little writing-room." On one occasion
Master Lucas Edemberger, George Rhau and some other good
comrades, who were musicians, came to visit Luther, but on
enquiry at his house, learnt that he had " for some time past "
shut himself up and refused to see anyone, or to taste food or
drink. Edemberger received no answer to his knock, and, look
ing through the keyhole, saw Luther lying on his face on the
floor with outstretched arms in a faint. He forced open the door,
raised him and brought him to a lower chamber where some food
was given him. " Thereupon he and his comrades began to play ;
at this Dr. Luther came to himself slowly, and his melancholy
and sadness vanished " Becoming cheerful he begged his visitors
to visit him often and cheer him with their music, " for he found,
that as soon as he heard music his temptations and melancholy
disappeared ; hence the devil was a great enemy of music, which
cheers a man, for he loves nothing better than to reduce him to
gloom and sadness and make him faint-hearted and full of
doubts."

We have here a remarkable example of how his tempta
tions affected Luther bodily and were in turn influenced by
his bodily state, a subject which we shall reserve for future
consideration (vol. vi., xxxvi. 1, 2). This mutual influence,
finds its expression in the relief afforded him by music.

Ratzeberger adds other interesting particulars, showing

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, pp. 796, n. 2, 729.

2 See above, p. 133.

" Handschriftl. Gesch.," ed. Neudecker, p. 58.

4 G. Kawerau, " Etwas vom kranken Luther " (Deutsch-evangel-
ische Blatter," 29, 1904, p. 303 ff.), p. 305.

LUTHER'S LOVE FOR MUSIC 171

the happy effect of music on Luther's mind when confused
by anxieties and inward torments.

" As he found great relief from music in his temptations,
sadness and fits of melancholy, he wrote to Ludwig Senftlin
[Senfl], the Ducal Bavarian Band-master, and begged him to
set to music the text ' In pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam,'
which he did " ; it was also Luther's custom to have some music
after supper with his guests, "especially devotional music, taken
from the Gregorian chants."1

It is a relief to dwell for a moment, at the conclusion of a
rather disagreeable chapter, on the pleasing trait of Luther's
fondness for the melodies of the Church which he had known
and loved from his youth, and for music generally. Formerly,
the notes of the Church's chants had summoned him to " raise
a clean heart to God," and now music assists him to assuage to
some extent the storms which rage in his breast.

His letter to the highly esteemed composer Senfl, who was in
the service of the Duke of Bavaria, is still extant.2 It is dated
October 4, 1530, and in it Luther asks for a copy of a motet on
the text " In pace," etc., arranged for several voices, should
Senfl have such a thing, for since his boyish days the (Gregorian)
melody to this text had pleased him, and did so still more when
he learnt to understand the meaning of the words of the text.
If Senfl had no such composition in his possession then he would
beg him to compose one later, perhaps after Luther's death, for
he now hoped that death would soon free him from a world of
which he was as weary as it was of him, one reason why that
Antiphon of the entrance into rest was so dear to him. It is
the first Antiphon in the Nocturns of the Holy Saturday Office
and runs : "In peace in the self -same I will sleep and I will rest,
for Thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope."3

" We know," he continues, " that music is hateful and un
bearable to the devils, and I am not ashamed to declare, that
next to theology only music is able to afford interior peace and
joy. The devil likes to cause us trouble and perplexity, but he
takes to flight at the sound of music, just as he does at the words
of theology, and for this reason the prophets always combined
theology and music, the teaching of truth and the chanting of
psalms and hymns." " It was thus that David with his harp,"
he said on another occasion, " allayed Saul's temptations wrhen
the devil plagued him. . . . Do not dispute with the devil about
the law, for he is a rare conjurer."4 " He has a bulwark against
us in our flesh and blood ; . . . when he makes me fancy that
God is far from me, I say : Well then, I will cry and call upon

1 " Handschriftl. Gesch.," p. 59.

2 " Briefwechsel," 8, p. 276. Letters edited by De Wette, 4 (not
3, as stated by the editor of Ratzeberger), p. 181.

3 From Psalm iv. 9 ff.

4 " Werke," Erl. ed., GO, p. 60 (" Tischreden ").

172 THE APOSTASY

Him."1 " Many temptations and evil thoughts are dispelled by
music."2 "Singers are cheerful and drive away cares with
song."3

Senfl's sweet and charming motets had, he assures him,
special power over him.4 " But I allow myself to be carried
away almost too much by my love for this art," he says at the
end of his letter to Sonfl, " which has often refreshed me and
delivered me from great molestations."

It would doubtless have been of great advantage to
Luther's cause had his insistent praise of the person he is ad
dressing, and of the Dukes of Bavaria for their love of music,
succeeded in securing for him a footing in Munich. He does
not in this letter conceal the fact that these Dukes were not
favourably disposed towards him. Senfl, though holding
constant intercourse with the followers of the new teaching,
remained a member of the Catholic Church, nor were the
Dukes of Bavaria, for all their enlightened ideas, to be tricked
into a compromise with heresy by any attempt, however
clever and pious in appearance. The warm expression of
trust and confidence in God, such as we find here, was not
unusual in the letters Luther addressed to princely Courts
and high officers of state.

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 60, p. 01. 2 Ibid., 61, p. 307.

3 Ibid., p. 309. * Ibid.

CHAPTER XIV

FROM THE PEASANT WAR TO THE DIET OF AUGSBURG

(1525-1530)

1. Luther's Marriage

WHEN, in November, 1524, Spalatin, on the occasion of an
enquiry made by a lady, ventured to broach the question
when Luther proposed taking a wife, he received the
following answer : He was to tell the enquirer (Argula), that
Luther was " in the hands of God, as a creature whose heart
He could fashion as He would ; whom He was able to kill
or to make alive at any hour and any moment." His
feelings were yet foreign to matrimony. " But I shall
neither set bounds to God's action in my regard, nor listen
to my own heart."1 By these words, which were addressed
to all observers and critics, he not only left himself an open
door, but attempted to describe his state in the terms of that
pseudo-mysticism of man's bondage and lack of free will as
regards God's designs to which at times he was wont to
abandon himself more or less completely, according to the
varying circumstances of his life.

About March or April, 1525, a definite intention to marry
begins to appear. The letter to Spalatin referred to above,
on p. 140, was written on April 16, and, though in it he does
not yet admit his determination to marry, he speaks of
himself jestingly as a famous lover, who had had at one
time three wives in his hands. His eye fell on Catherine von
Bora, who after her flight from the convent at Nimbschen,
had found a home in the house of the Town-clerk, Reichen-
bach (above, p. 138). He speaks of her in a letter of May 4
as " my Katey " and declares that he is about to marry

1 On November 30, 1524, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 77 (see p. 181, n. 2).
Here Luther remarks that there is much gossip ("garriri") about
him and his marriage.

173

174 THE APOSTASY

her.1 Owing to his intimacy with her all sorts of stories
went the rounds in the town during the following months,
to which intercourse with the ex-nuns referred to above
(p. 145) gave all the more colour.

Then, suddenly, without consulting any of his friends
and with a haste which surprised even his own followers, on
the evening of June 13, he celebrated his wedding with Bora
in his own house, with all the formalities then usual.
Besides Bugenhagen and Jonas, Luther's friends, only the
painter Lucas Cranach and his wife, and the Professor of
Jurisprudence, Dr. Apel, were summoned as witnesses. The
consummation of the marriage seems to have been duly
witnessed by Bugenhagen as Pastor of Wittenberg. The
public wedding did not take place until June 27, according
to the custom common in that district of dividing the actual
marriage from the public ceremony. During the interval
Luther invited several guests to be present, as we see from
his letters, which are still extant. From June 13 he speaks
of himself already as " copulatus"* and as a " husband."3

On June 14 Jonas sent by special messenger to Spalatin
a letter, evidently written under the stress of very mixed
feelings : " Luther has taken Catherine von Bora to wife.
Yesterday I was there and saw the betrothed on the bridal
couch. I could not restrain my tears at the sight ; I know
not what strong emotion stirred my soul ; now that it has
taken place and is the Will of God, I wish the excellent,
honest man and our beloved father in the Lord, every
happiness. God is wonderful in His decrees ! "4

Luther also was at pains to represent the incident as
divinely ordained, a high and holy act.

At a later date he said : " God willed that I should take
pity on her [Catherine]."5 Even before taking the step,
he had thought out the plan of impressing upon his union

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 293 (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 164). In
October, 1524, he speaks of Pastor Caspar Glatz as her future husband,
without mentioning his own intentions (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 35).

2 To Amsdorf, June 21, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 204. Cp.
Enders in " Luthers Briefwechsel," 5, p. 195.

3 To the Marshal Johann von Dolzigk, June 21, 1525, " Werke,"
Erl. ed., 53, p. 322 ("Briefwechsel," 5, p. 201). Cp. p. 175, n. 5,
" coniux."

4 Jonas to Spalatin, June 14, 1525, in "Jonas' Briefwechsel," ed.
Kawerau, 1, 1884, p. 94.

6 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 2, p. 238, " Werke," Erl. ed., 61, p. 184.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 175

with " Katey," the ex-nun, the character of a " reforming
work." " Because our enemies do not cease to condemn
matrimony," he writes, and "our ' little wiseacres ' daily
scoff at it," he feels himself for that very reason attracted to
it ; being determined to give celebrity to the true teaching
of the Gospel concerning marriage.1 He had informed
Albert, the archiepiscopal Elector, that before quitting this
life he would enter the married state, which he considered
as enjoined by God,2 and somewhat earlier he had confided
to a friend that, if he could manage it before he died, he
meant " to take his Katey to wife in order to spite the devil." 3
This agrees in part with what he wrote shortly after his
marriage : " The Lord plunged me suddenly, while I still
clung to quite other views, into matrimony."4

As a matter of fact it was the unpleasant rumours aroused
when his intimacy with Bora became known, which hastened
the step. This is what Bugenhagen, an authentic witness,
says with evident displeasure : Evil tales were the cause
of Dr. Martin's becoming a married man so unexpectedly.6
Luther himself admits this in a confidential letter to Spalatin
three days after the step. He informs him of his marriage
as follows : " I have shut the mouth of those who slandered
me and Catherine von Bora."6

In the same letter Luther also refers to the reproach he had
at first dreaded, viz. of degrading himself by his marriage.
He scoffs at this : " I have become so low and despicable by
this marriage," he says jokingly, " that I hope the angels
will laugh and all the devils weep. The world and its ' wise
ones ' do not yet recognise the pious and holy work of
God and in me they regard it as something impious and
devilish. Hence it pleases me greatly that, by my marriage,

1 To Spalatin, April 10, 1525, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 153.

2 See above, p. 142.

3 To Johann Riihel, May 4, 1525, " Werke," Erl. ed., p. 53 294
(" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 164).

4 To Wenceslaus Link, June 20, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 201 :
" Dominus me subito aliaque cogitantem coniecit mire in coniugium."

5 Vogt, " Briefwechsel Bugenhagens," 1888, p. 32 : " Maligna fama
effecit, ttf doctor Martinus insperato fieret coniux ; post aliquot tamen
dies publica solemnitate duximus istas sacras nuptias etiam cor am mundo
venerandas."

6 On June 16, 1525, "Briefwechsel," 5, p. 197 : " Os obstruxi in-
famantibus me cum Catharina Bora." At a much later date he excuses
the haste by his wish to anticipate the proposal of his friends that he
should select some other woman.

176 THE APOSTASY

the opinion of those who continue to persevere in their
ignorance of divine things is brought in question and con
demned. Farewell, and pray for me."1 Such utterances
were directed also against many of the friends of the
Evangel. Hieronymus Schurf, the lawyer, and otherwise
Luther's confidant, had been one of those opposed to his
marriage. He had said : "If this Monk takes a wife all the
world and the devil himself will laugh, and Luther will
undo the whole of his previous work*"8

Melanchthon, too, expressed his deep displeasure at the
marriage in the remarkable Greek letter already once
referred to (p. 145) addressed to his friend Joachim
Camerarius, and dated June 1C, 1525.

The true wording of this Greek letter, which Camerarius
saw fit to modify, as is proved by the original in the Chigi
Library in Rome, with his " corrections " in red pencil,
only became known in 1876. 3 He revised it completely for
his edition of Melanchthon's letters because he feared to

1 " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 197, 198.

2 See Amsdorf in Scultetus (fl625), " Annales Evaiigelii," 1, p. 274.

3 V. Druffel, " Die Melanchthon-Handschriften der Chigi-Biblio-
thek," in " SB. der Bayr. Akad. phil.-hist. KL," 1876, p. 491 ff. Wi
Meyer, " Uber die Originale von Melanchthons Brief en an Camerarius,"
ibid., p. 596 ff. " Katholik," 1900, 1, p. 392, an article by P. A. Kirsch
with photo of letter. We are forced to depart from his translation on
certain points. Cp. also Nik. Miiller's reprint in " Zeitschr. fur Kirchen-
gesch.," 21, 1901, p. 595. The letter runs :

" Ei' irpaTTeiv. "On p.ev ^ae\\e TTpbs vfj.as 77 07^7? ou% ofj.oia irepl TOV yd/j.ov
TOV \ovdepov dyyetXai, £5o£e fj.oi irepl avrov u>s yv&fj.yv ^w CTOL e-mo-Te\\eiv.
fjLrjvbs lovviov i]fj.epa iy dTrpoo~5oKr]TU}s e'yy/j.e TT\V TZopeiav 6 i\ovdepos /j.r)Sevl TUV
(friXwv rb Trpdyaa irpb TOV dva8e/j.evos, dXX' eairepas Trpbs detirvov KdXfffas rbv
IIo/j.epaviea Kal A.OVKO.V rbv ypafaa Kal rbv " A.ire\\ov /nbvovs tTroiijffe ra eWiff^va.
TrporeXeia.

" Qav/mdaeias de SLV, rotirqi TOJ Svarv^ei xpovw, Ka\Q>v Kaya0uv dvdpuiv
Trdvrore raXanrupov/j-fvuv rovrov ov (TV/j.7rdo"%eiv, dXX' tos 5o/f6? /j.d\\ov rpi'(pdt>
Kal TO avTov d^iu/ma eXarTovv, ore /idXtora \peia.v ^%ei r/ Yep^avia (ppovrjimaTos
Te Kal f^ovffias avTov. 'Eya d£ ravra. OVTU TTWS yevtffGai ol/u.ai. '^ariv 6
dvrip ws fj.d\iffTa 6i'%e/)7js Kai al /Aovaxal Trdcry wx.a.vri eiri.l3ov\tvo^i>ai TrpofffffTraaav
O.VTOV. "Icrws 77 iro\\T] ffvvriffeia, rj ffvv ra?s yU,oj/axa?y KO.V yevvalov ovra. Kal
. re/xdX^a^e rj Kal Trpoffe^eKavffe. TOVTOV Tpbirov eifftrecrew doKeT ets

rjv aKaipov piov /j.€Taj3o\rjv. Qpv\\ov/j.fvov de, on Kal irpb TOV oiaKOpevaev
, e\f/eva6ai. 5r)\bv €<TTL.

" ?\vvl de TO -rrpaxdfv fj.r] /Sape'wj (pepeiv del 7? 6veiSi^€iv. dXXd i)yovfj.ai virb
dvayKaadrjvai ya/j.e?v. OiVos Se fiios Taireivbs fJ-^vt dXXa. 6'crt6s tan KO.\
deLo fj.a\\ov TOV dyd/nov dp^cr/cet. Kat on avrbv TOV AovOepov eiriKvirbv TTWS ovTa
bp(»i Kal rapa-^Qevra oia. TT]V /Stou ^era^o\-qv, Trday (nrovdri Kal evvoLa ("irixeipu)
trapafjLvde'iaOai, eireiori oi'Trw eirpa^e n, oirep eyKaXetffOai d^icD 7} dvaTroXoyijTOV
8oKel. eTL o£ TeK/u.r)pid Tiva ^%w TT^S evcefieia'S avTov, tiere KaTaKpiveiv OVK e^eivai.
e?7reiTa SLV /maXXov T^I'^O/XT/V avTov TaTreLVOvffdat rj v^ovadai. Kal eiraipeffBai, birep
e<TT\v ^Trtcr^aXej, ov /j.6vov rots ev lepwcrvvr], dXXd Kal Traviv dvdpwwois. TO yap e5

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 177

make the severe censure it contained public ; thus the
letter was formerly only known in the altered shape in which
it was also published in 1834 in the " Corpus Reforma-
torum," which begins with Melanchthon's letters. A similar
fate has befallen several other letters of Melanchthon in the
Camerarius editions, and consequently also in the " Corpus."

Melanchthon, according to the real text of the letter (which
we give in full in the note), commences with these words : " Since
you have probably received divergent accounts concerning
Luther's marriage, I judge it well to send you my views on his
wedding." After detailing the external circumstances already
referred to, and pointing out that Luther "had not consulted
any of his friends beforehand," he continues : " You will perhaps
be surprised that, at this unhappy time when upright and right-
thinking men are everywhere being oppressed, he is not also
suffering, but, to all appearance, leads a more easy life (/xSXXoz/
Tpv(f>S.i>) and endangers his reputation, notwithstanding the fact
that the German nation stands in need of all his wisdom and
strength. It appears to me, however, that this is how it has
happened." And here Melanchthon brings forward the com
plaints already related (p. 145) of the imprudent intimacy
between a " man otherwise noble and high-minded " and the
escaped nuns, who had made use of every art to attract him and
thus had rendered him effeminate and inflamed his passions.
"He seems after this fashion to have been drawn into the un
timely change in his mode of life. It is clear, however, that the
gossip concerning his previous criminal intercourse with her
[Bora] was false. Now the thing is done it is useless to find
fault with it, or to take it amiss, for I believe that nature impels
man to matrimony. Even though this life is low, yet it is holy,
and more pleasing to God than the unmarried state. And since

Trparreiv, d^op^T] TOU /ca/ow? (ppovelv yiverai, ov [JLOVOV, u>? 6 pr,Tup tyy, TCHS dvor/Toi ?,
dXXa Kal TOIS <ro0o?j.

" IIpoj TovTip Kal c-\7ri'fw, OTL 6 /3t'os ovTOffl fff^oTepov avTov iroir]crei, tiffre Kal
aTro^aXe?*/ TTJV /SaytoXox/ai/, fa TroXXa/as tfUflj/ApeB*. aXXos yap pios aXXyv
Siairav Kara Trapoi/Liiav KaraffTriaei.

" TaOra irpos ae paKpoXoyu, wore ^ <re vwb -rrapado^ov TT pay >fj.ar oy ayav
TapaTTeaffai. olSa yap on /u.e\ei aoi TOU d^w/iaroj TOU Aovdepov, o-rrep vvvl
f\aTTovff8ai axdead-fja-ri. ITapa/caXtD 3e ae irpaw raura (pepeLv, OTL Ti>ioy /3ios 6
ydfj.o^ €i> ayiais ypatpais elvou X^erat. eu-os d£ dvayKaa0TJi>ai dX^^ws yaju.e'iv.
IloXXa TUV Ti-dXcu ayluv TrrotV/taro I5ci£cv 6 0ebs r,/Lui>, 6'rt 0e\et -r^ds jBaaavifoisTas
rbv avTou \6yoi>, OVK d^'wyua dvOpuiruv i) irpb<rwirov <n'>/j./3ov\ov Troieii>, dXXd fjibvov
avrov \byov. ird\iv Se do-f/SeirraTos €<TTIV, 6'<rrty did Tb 5t5aaKd\ov
Ka.Tayi.yvuffKei TT/S

" Michaelis pergrata consuetude in his turbis mihi est, quern miror,
qui passus sis isthinc discedere. Patrem officiosissime tractate, et
puta te hanc illi pro paterno amore gratiam debere Kal avTiireXapyelv
De Francicis rebus a te litteras expecto. Vale foeliciter. Postridie
corp. Christi. Tabellarius qui has reddet, recta ad nos rediturus est.
^i'XtTTTToj." (The seal is still preserved.)

II. — N

178 THE APOSTASY

I see that Luther is to some extent sad and troubled about this
change in his way of life, I seek very earnestly to encourage him
by representing to him that he has done nothing which, in my
opinion, can be made a subject of reproach to him."

In spite of his misgivings Melanchthon seeks to console him
self with two strange reflections : Advancement and honour are
dangerous to all men, even to those who fear God as Luther does,
and therefore this " low " way of life is good for him. And
again, " I am in hopes that he will now lay aside the buffoonery l
for which we have so often found fault with him." Camerarius
must not allow himself to be disconcerted by Luther's unex
pected mode of proceeding, even though he may be painfully
aware that it is injurious to him. " I exhort you to bear this
with patience . . . God has shown us by the numerous mistakes
(irralffjMTa) the Saints committed in earlier ages, that He wishes
us to prove His Word and not to rely upon the reputation of any
man, but only on His Word. He would, indeed, be a very god
less man who, on account of the mistake (Trrcucr/xa) of the doctor,
should judge slightingly of his doctrine. ..." Melanchthon
then reiterates his statement that nature impels a man to matri
mony, adding to it the word " verily."2

The letter, which was not intended for publication and,
probably for this reason, was written in Greek, contains a strange
admixture of blame and dissatisfaction coupled with recognition
and praise of Luther's good qualities. We soe clearly how
Melanchthon tries to overcome the bitterness he feels by means
of these reflections, which however reveal him as the learned
and timid Humanist he really was, rather than as a theologian
and man of the world. Protestants have attempted to moderate
the impression created by this letter of Melanchthon's by repre-

1 Not p5e\vpiai>, debauchery, as was thought, but
is the correct reading. The latter might perhaps be translated as
" the passion for making coarse jests." This is the opinion of G.
Kawerau in " Deutsch-Evaiigelische Blatter," 1906, " Luther und
Melanchthon " (in the reprint, p. 37), who remarks that the only thing
damning for Luther in this letter was Melanchthon's statement " con
cerning the coarse jests to which Luther was given in his bachelor days,
and which had so often scandalised his friend." Kawerau, for this very
reason, thinks that this much-discussed letter, " which Camerarius only
ventured to print after much revision " (p. 34), is much better cal
culated to " make us acquainted with Melanchthon than with Luther,
and simply bears witness to the former's sensitiveness " (p. 37). It is
true that " some of Luther's talk appears to us to-day frightfully
coarse, and Melanchthon felt as we do on the subject " ; but apart
from the fact that Melanchthon's views were not representative of his
age, Mathesius declares that " he never heard an immodest word from
Luther's lips." We shall return later to the question of that age as
a linguistic standard of morality and to Mathesius's statement, which,
we may remark, refers to a later period.

2 eiVo? de dvayKaaOrji'ai aXydus ya^elv. The subject of the verb
dvayKaadijvaL is the infinitive yap-dv, as in the previous passage
riyoi'fjia.1 viro 0iVews avayKaadqvaL ya.fj.e1v. On the passive form a
see e.g. Plato, " Ph^ed.," 242a, 254a.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 179

senting it as written hastily in a passing fit of temper. As a
matter of fact, however, it does not kbear the impress of having
been so written, and, considering how the writer is evidently at
pains to find some justification for Luther's conduct, it cannot
be described as written hastily and without due thought. The
writer, in spite of all he says, is anxious that " what has taken
place should not be blamed " ; Luther to him is still " a noble
and high-minded man," one, too, who has given proof of his fear
of God.

One of the most recent of Luther admirers accordingly abandons
this excuse, and merely speaks of the letter as a " hateful " one,
" written in an extremely uncomfortable frame of mind." After
various reflections thereon he arrives at the following surprising
conclusion : " If we place ourselves in poor Melanchthon's
position and realise the slight offered him in not having been
apprised of the matter until after the wedding had taken place,
and his grief that his friend should thus expose the cause of the
evangel to slander, we must admit that, after all, the letter was
quite amiable." If, however, there was any question of slight
in the matter, Melanchthon was certainly not the only one who
had cause for complaint ; accustomed as he was to such treat
ment on Luther's part, he scarcely even refers to it, his objection
being based on far more serious grounds. He showed no
sign of having been slighted when, shortly after, he invited
Wenceslaus Link to the public " nuptice," expressing his good
wishes that Luther's marriage "may turn out well."1 The
scruples which he shared with Camerarius concerning Luther's
intimacy with the ex-nuns were not new, but had long disquieted
him. We may notice over and over again his secret esteem for
celibacy, which he ranks above matrimony, and such thoughts
may well have animated him when composing the letter, even
though ho repels them and praises the married state. "It is
plain," says Kawerau, " that a shudder passes through his frame
at the very thought of marriage between a monk and a nun."2
We can only regard it as clue to his state of indecision when he
says in the letter in question, first that Luther " had done nothing
that called for reproach," and then, that " he had made a mis
take."

We may nevertheless grant to the Protestant author, mentioned
at the commencement of the previous paragraph, that Melanch
thon— who was not, as a matter of fact, apprised by Luther of
his thoughts at that time—" did not rightly understand the
motive which caused him to enter the married state at such a
moment. Indeed, the motive was not to be readily understood.
Luther's intention, so our author thinks, was to set his enemies
at defiance by his marriage and to show them " that he would
pay less attention to them than ever " ; being apprehensive of
his approaching end, he determined to set the last touch to his
doctrine on matrimony by a solemn and manly act.

Many others, like Melanchthon, have been unable to appreciate
1 " Corp. ref.," 1, p. 750. 2 LOG. tit., p. 36.

180 THE APOSTASY

this " great motive," or at any rate the disadvantages of marriage
in Luther's case seem to have weighed more heavily with them
than its compensating advantages in the service of the Reforma
tion.

This explanation, nevertheless, appears so convincing to our
author that he does not insist further upon another reason
which he hints at, viz. that Catherine von Bora " was unkindly
disposed to Melanchthon," and that he much feared she would
alienate his friend's heart from him. The same writer mildly
remarks concerning the falsification of the letter committed by
Camerarius : "it was not with the intention of falsifying, that
he made various alterations, but in order to prevent disedifica-
tion." Camerarius has, however, unfortunately aggravated one
passage in the letter, for where Melanchthon speaks for the first
time of man's natural inclination for marriage, Camerarius
adds the word avrov, thus referring directly to Luther what
the writer intended for men in general : "I believe he was forced
by nature to marry," which, following immediately upon the
passage referring to his frivolous intercourse with the nuns and
the calumnies about Bora, gives a still more unfavourable im
pression of Luther. This at any rate may serve to exculpate the
Catholic controversialists, who erroneously referred this passage,
and the other one which resembles it, directly to Luther, whereas
he is comprised in it only indirectly.

According to what we have seen, the circumstance of
Luther's sudden marriage occurring just at the time of the
panic of the Peasant War, made an especially deep impres
sion on Melanchthon, who was ever inclined to circumspection
and prudence.

In point of fact, a more unsuitable time, and one in more
glaring contrast with nuptial festivities, it would have been
impossible for Luther to select. The flames of the conflagra
tion raging throughout Germany and even in the vicinity of
Wittenberg, and the battlefields strewn with the dead, slain
by the rebels or the supporters of the Knights and Princes,
formed a terrible background to the Wittenberg wedding.

The precipitancy of his action was the more remarkable
because at that time Luther himself was living in a state of
keen anxiety concerning the outcome of the great social
and religious upheaval.

Seeing that he was looked upon, by both lord and peasant,
as the prime instigator of the trouble, he had grave cause to
fear for his own safety. About five weeks later, writing
from Seeburg, near Mansfeld, after a preaching tour through
the rebels' country, he says : " I, who am also affected by

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 181

it, for the devil is intent upon my death, know that he is
angered because so far he has been unable either by cunning
or by force to harm me and is determined to be rid of me
even should he be forced to do his worst and set the whole
world in an uproar ; so that I really believe, and it appears
to me, that it is on my account that he does such things
in the world in order that God may plague the world. If I
reach home safe and sound, I shall, with God's help, prepare
myself for death."1

Whereas he had written not long before, that he was not
thinking of marrying because he awaited death, i.e. the
death-penalty for heresy, 2 according to his statements after
his marriage it was the thought of death which had led him
to contract the union ; God's work was unmistakable, God
was shaming his adversaries. rHe repeatedly makes state
ments to this effect, which we shall gather together with
some of his other assertions to form a picture of his mental
state then.

In one of the letters of invitation to the public wedding he
writes : " The lords, priests and peasants are all against me and
threaten me with death ; well, as they are so mad and foolish I
shall take care to be found at my end in the state [matrimony]
ordained by God."3 He is forced, however, to brace himself up
in order not to lose heart and be vexed at the falling away of
the people from him ; "to resign favour, honour and followers "4
caused him grief of heart and an inward struggle.

His conviction that the end of the world was approaching,
also did its part in exciting him ; " the destruction of the world
may be expected any hour," he writes.5

Hence he is determined, as he declares, to marry " in order to

1 To Johann Ruhel, " Wcrke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 293 (" Brief wechsel,"
5, p. 164).

2 To Spalatin, November 30, 1524 (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 77) :
" Animus alienus cst a coniuyio, cum cxpectem quotidie mortem ct
meritum hceretici supplicium" This he wrote under the influence of
the stringent decrees of the Diet of Nuremberg (April 18, 1524), and
in order to work upon his Elector. The decrees had led him to write :
"You are in a great hurry to put me, a poor man, to death," but that
his death would be the undoing of his enemies. " Two unequal decrees
of the Emperor," " Werke," Erl. ed., 242, p. 222 f. ; Weim. ed., 15,
p. 254.

3 To Johann Ruhel, Johann Thiir and Caspar Miiller, " Werke,"
Erl. ed., 53, p. 314 (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 195).

4 Sermon on Psalm xxvi. preached in Wittenberg shortly after his
marriage, " Werke," Erl. ed., 39, p. 115.

6 From the concluding words of the tract of 1525 : " Against the
murderous, thievish bands of peasants," " Werke," Erl. ed., 18,
p. 361 ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 309.

182 THE APOSTASY

defy the devil,"1 i.e. he defies all his afflictions and anxieties,
all the accusations of others as well as of his own conscience,
and surrenders himself to the feeling, which, since the Wartburg
days, ever stirred the depths of his soul on such occasions and
made him hope to recover all the ground lost by means of force
and violence. Peace and contentment of soul were not, however,
the immediate result, for Melanchthon writes, that, after his
marriage, Luther had been "sad and troubled."2

Luther will, however, have it that it was God Who had shown
him the road he had taken.

" God is pleased to work wonders in order to mock me and the
world and to make fools of us."3 " That it is Gfod's work even
the ' wise ones ' among us are forced to acknowledge, though
they are greatly vexed. The picture their fancy paints of me
and the girl makes them lose their wits so that they think and
speak godlessly. But the Lord liveth and is greater in us than
he [the devil] that is in the world ( 1 John iv. 4)." 4 " God willed it
and carried it out " (" Sic Deus voluit et fecit ").5 "On account
of this work of God I have, it is true, to suffer much abuse and
many calumnies."6 " Thus, so far as I am able, I have [by my
marriage] thrown away the last remnant of my former popish
life ; I am determined to make them [my foes] still madder and
more foolish ; this is the stirrup-cup and my last good-bye."7

" Were the world not scandalised at us, I should be scandalised
at the world, for I should be afraid lest what we undertake is not
of God ; but as the world is scandalised and withstands me, I
am edified and comfort myself in God ; do you likewise."8

" The cause of the Evangel has been greatly wronged by Miinzer
and the peasants," he declares, therefore he wished to strengthen
it by his marriage, in spite of the Papists who were shouting in
triumph (" ne videar cessisse "), " and I shall do more still which
will grieve them and bring them to the recognition of the Word."9

If, to the motives for his marriage which he enumerates
above, we add a further reason, also alleged by him, viz.
that he wished to show himself obedient to his father, who
desired the marriage, we arrive at the stately number of
seven reasons. They may be arranged as follows : 1. Be
cause it was necessary to shut the mouth of those who spoke
evil of him on account of his relations with Bora. 2. Because
he was obliged to take pity on the forsaken nun. 3. Be-

See above, p. 175. 2 See above, p. 178.

To Leonard Koppe, June 17, 1525 (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 199).
To Michael Stiefel, June 17, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 199.
To Amsdorf, June 21, 1525, ibid., p. 204.
To Wenceslaus Link, June 20, 1525, ibid., p. 201.
In letter quoted above, p. 181, n. 3.

To Michael Stiefel, September 29, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 248.
To Johann Brismami (after August 15 ?), 1525, " Briefwechsel,"
5, p. 226.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 183

cause his father wished it. 4. Because the Catholics repre
sented matrimony as contrary to the Gospel. 5. Because
even his friends laughed at his plan of marrying. 6. Be
cause the peasants and the priests threatened him with
death and he must therefore defy the terrors raised by the
devil. 7. Because God's will was plainly apparent in the
circumstances. Melanchthon's reason, viz. that man is
impelled to marriage by nature, Luther does not himself
bring forward.

We must not lose sight of the circumstance that the
marriage took place barely five weeks after the death of the
Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise. His successor was more
openly favourable towards the ecclesiastical innovations.
Frederick would have nothing to do with the marriage of
the clergy, particularly with nuns, although he did not
permit any steps to be taken against those who had married.
He wrote to his Councillors at Torgau on October 4, 1523,
that to undertake any alteration or innovation would be
difficult, more particularly in these days when he had to
anticipate trouble " for our country and people " from the
opponents of Lutheranism ; "he did not think that a
clergyman ought to earn his stipend by idleness and the
taking of wives, and by works which he himself condemned." *
In May, 1524, we see from one of Luther's letters to Spalatin
that difficulties had been raised at the Court concerning the
remuneration of the married clergy by the Government.
In this letter he recommends Johann Apel, formerly Canon
of \Viirzburg, who had married a nun, for a post at the
University of Wittenberg, and gives special advice in case
his marriage should prove an obstacle (" quod si uxorcula
obstet" etc.). He here condemns the faint-hearted action
of the Elector, and remarks, that he will not thereby escape
the animosity of his foes, seeing that he notoriously " favours
heretics and provides for them."2

Luther did not lose his habit of jesting with his friends,
though his witticisms are neither proper nor edifying : "I
am bound in the meshes of my mistress's tresses," he writes
to one,3 and to another, that it all seemed " very strange "
to him and he could hardly realise he had " become a

1 " Corp. ref.," 1, p. 641.

2 On May 11, 1524, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 340.

3 In the letter quoted above, p. 174, n. 3.

184 THE APOSTASY

married man, but the evidence was so strong that he was in
honour bound to believe it " ; and to a third, since God
had taken him captive unawares in the bonds of holy
matrimony, he would be obliged to confirm this with a
" collation " [dinner-party], therefore he and Mrs. Catherine
begged him to send a cask of the best Torgau beer for a good
drink ; should " it turn out not to be good, the sender would
have to drink it all himself as a penalty."1 He speaks later
in the same jocose fashion of his " Katey " as the " Kette "
[chain] to which he is tied, and rather indelicately plays on
his wife's maiden name : " I lie on the bier [' Bore '=mod.
Germ. ' Bahrc '], i.e. I am dead to the world. My Catena
[Kette, or chain] rattles her greetings to you and your
Catena." This to Wenceslaus Link, the former Vicar of the
Augustinians, who was already married.2

Such jokes were likely to be best appreciated in the circle
of apostate priests and monks.

But many earnest men of Luther's own party, who like
Melanchthon and Schurf, feared evil consequences from the
marriage, were little disposed for such trifling.

Luther jestingly complains of such critics : " The wise
men who surrounded him " were greatly incensed at his
marriage ;3 he says he knew beforehand that "evil tongues
would wag " and, in order that the marriage might " not be
hindered," he had " made all haste to consummate it."4

Friends and followers living at a distance expressed strong
disapproval of his conduct when it was already too late.
The Frankfurt Patrician, Ilamman von Ilolzhausen, wrote
on July 16, 1525, to his son Justinian, who was studying at
Wittenberg : "I have read your letter telling me that
Martinus Luthcrus has entered the conjugal state ; I fear
he will be evil spoken of and that it may cost him a great
falling off."5

It was, however, useless for the new husband to attempt to

1 To Leonard Koppe, June 21, 1525, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 202.

2 To Wenceslaus Link, July 20, 1525, ibid., p. 222.

3 In the letter quoted above, p. 182, n. 4 : " Vehementer irritantur
sapientes etiam inter nostros." These are the followers whom he had
complained of already on April 10, 1525 : " Nostri sapienticuli quotidie
idem (coniugium) ridere" To Spalatin, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 153.

4 To Amsdorf, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 314, " Briefwechsel," 5,
p. 204.

5 4t Archiv fur Frankfurter Gesch.," 7, 1855, p. 102 in 'finders,
" Briefwechsel Luthers," 5, p. 195, n. 4.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 185

defend himself against the consequences by excuses such as
the following : "I am neither in love nor consumed by
passion, but I esteem my wife highly."1 According to his
own assertion the step had not been taken under stress of
sensual passion, seeing that it was closely bound up with
his theology. " I had firmly determined, for the honour of
matrimony," he says in the Table-Talk, " before ever I
took a wife, that had I had to die unexpectedly, or were
lying on my death-bed, I would have wedded some pious
maiden."2 He again assures us, that even when an old
man and incapable of begetting children, he would still
have taken a wife " merely in order to do honour to the
married state and testify to his contempt for the shameful
immorality and evil living of the Papacy."3

We are here confronted with a strange psychological
phenomenon, a candidate for death who is at the same time
one for marriage.

Luther, however, speaks so frequently of this abnormal
idea of marrying at the hour of death, that he may gradually
have come to look upon it as something grand. In the case
of most people death draws the thoughts to the severing of
all earthly ties, but Luther, on the contrary, is desirous of
forming new ones at the very moment of dissolution. He
arrives at this paradox only by means of two highly ques
tionable ideas, viz. that he must exhibit the utmost defiance
and at the same time vindicate the sacred character of
marriage. It would have been quite possible for him with
out a wife to show his defiant spirit, and he had already
asserted his doctrine concerning marriage so loudly and
bluntly, that this fresh corroboration by means of such a
marriage was quite unnecessary. What was wanted was,
that he should vindicate his own act, which appeared to
many of his friends both troublesome and detrimental.
Hence his endeavours to conceal its true character by
ingenious excuses.

Luther's Catholic opponents were loud in the expression
of their lively indignation at the sacrilegious breaking of
their vows by monk and nun ; some embodied the same in
satires designed to check the spread of the movement and

1 To Amsdorf, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 204.

2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 61, p. 167.

3 Ibid., p. 265.

186 THE APOSTASY

to open the eyes of Luther's followers. One saying of
Erasmus has frequently been quoted : A wedding was the
usual end of a comedy, but here it was the termination of a
tragedy. The actual wording of the somewhat lengthy
passage runs thus : "In the comic opera the fuss usually
ends in a wedding and then all is quiet ; in the case of
sovereigns their tragedies also frequently come to a similar
conclusion, which is not particularly advantageous to the
people, but is better than a war. . . . Luther's tragedy
seems likely to end in the same way. The Monk has taken a
nun to wife . . . Luther has now become calmer and his
pen no longer makes the same noise. There is none so wild
but that a wife can tame him."1 Erasmus, however,
speedily withdrew his last words, writing that Luther has
become more virulent than ever.2

More in place than such satires were the serious expres
sions of disapproval and regret on the part of Catholics
concerning the terrible fall of the quondam monk and minis
ter of the altar, by reason of his invalid marriage with the
nun. Hieronymus Dungershcim of Leipzig was later to
raise his voice in a protest of this sort, addressed to Luther,
which may be considered as an echo of the feeling awakened
in the minds of many by the news of Luther's marriage
and as such may serve as a striking historical testimony :
" O unhappy, thrice unhappy man ! Once you zealously
taught, supported by Divine testimonies and agreeably
with the Church of God, that the insolence of the flesh must be
withstood by penance and prayer ; now7 you have the fallen
woman living with you and give yourself up to serve the
flesh under the pretence of marriage, blinded as you are by
self-indulgence, pride and passion ; by your example you
lead others to similar wickedness. . . . What a startling
change, what inconstancy ! Formerly a monk, now in the
midst of a world you once forsook ; formerly a priest, nowr,
as you yourself believe, without any priestly character and
altogether laicised ; formerly in a monk's habit, now dressed
as a secular ; formerly a Christian, now a Husite ; formerly
in the true faith, now a mere Picard ; formerly exhorting the
devout to chastity and perseverance, now enticing them to

1 " Opp.," Lugd. Batav., 1703, t. 3, col. 900. Erasmus to Nicholas
Everardus, Prases in Holland, from Basle, December 24, 1525.

2 Ibid., coL 919, to Franciscus Sylvius, from Basle, March 13, 1526.

LUTHER'S MARRIAGE 187

tread their vow under foot and to deliver themselves without
compunction into the hands of the Evil One ! ?!l

In the above, light has been thrown upon the numerous
legends attaching to Luther's wedding at Wittenberg, and
their true value may now be better appreciated.

It is clear, for instance, from the facts recorded, that it is
incorrect to accuse Luther of not having complied with the
then formalities, and of having consummated the marriage
before even attempting to conclude these. The distinction
mentioned above between the two acts of June 13 and
27, each of which had its special significance, \vas either
unknown to or ignored by these objectors. Were we merely
to consider the due observance of the formalities, then there
is no doubt that these were complied with, save that objec
tion might be raised as to the legal status of the pastor.
But, on the other hand, Canon Law was plainly and dis
tinctly opposed to the validity of a marriage contracted
between parties bound by solemn monastic vows. Thus
from the point of view of civil law the regularity of Luther's
new status was very doubtful, as both Canon Law and the
Law of the Empire did not recognise the marriages of priests
and monks, and lawyers were forced to base their decisions
upon such laws. We shall have to speak later of Luther's
anger at the " quibbles " of the lawyers, and his anger had
some reason, viz. his wrell-founded fear lest his marriage
should not be recognised as valid by the lawyers, and hence
that his children would be stamped as illegitimate and as
incapable of inheriting.

The false though frequently repeated statement, that Catherine
von Bora was confined a fortnight after her marriage with
Luther can be traced back to a letter of Erasmus, dated December
24, 1525, giving too hasty credence to malicious reports.2 Erasmus
himself, however, distinctly retracted this statement in another
letter of March 13, 1526 : " The previous report of the woman's
delivery," he writes, " was untrue, but now it is said she is in a
certain condition."3 As his previous statement was thought to
be correct, doubts were raised as to the authenticity of the
secdnd letter ; the objections are, however, worthless ; both
letters are taken from the same set of the oldest collection of the

1 " Articuli aive libelli triginta," art. 17, p. 87 seq.

2 " Opp.," Lugd. Batav.
8 Ibid., col. 919, ep. 801.

2 " Opp.," Lugd. Batav., 1703, 3, col. 900, ep. 781.

188 THE APOSTASY

correspondence of Erasmus, and, from their first appearance,
were ever held to be genuine.

Indeed, the assumption that Luther had unlawful intercourse
with Catherine von Bora before his marriage is founded solely
and entirely on certain reports already discussed, viz. his intimacy
with the escaped nuns generally.

It is true that soon after the marriage Luther speaks of
Catherine von Bora as his "Mistress" (" Metze ") in whose
tresses he is bound,1 but the word he uses had not at that time
the opprobrious meaning it conveys in modern German ; it
simply meant a girl or woman, and was a term of endearment in
common use.

An assertion made by Joachim von dor Heyden, a Leipzig
Master, has also been quoted ; in a public writing of August 10,
1525, addressed to Catherine von Bora, he reproached her with
having conducted herself like a dancing-girl in her flight from
the convent to Wittenberg, and there, as was said, having lived
in an open arid shameless manner with Luther before she took
him as her husband.2 A circumstance which must not be over
looked is, that these words were intended for Catherine herself,
and appear to come from a man who believed what he was
saying. Yet on examination we see that he rests his assertion
merely on hearsay : " as was said." The "dancing-girl," again,
was adduced merely by way of comparison, though assuredly not
a complimentary one, and refers either to the very worldly
manners of the escaped nun, or to the secular, perhaps even
scarcely modest dress, for which she exchanged her habit on her
flight or afterwards. It is probable that at Leipzig, where
Heyden lived, and which was one of the headquarters of anti-
Lutheranism, something more definite would have been urged,
had anything really been known of any actual immorality
between Catherine and Luther.

Another bitter opponent of Luther's, Simon Lemnius, who
has also been appealed to, likewise adduces no positive or definite
facts. Among the inventions of his fancy contained in the
" Monachopornomachia " he left us, he does not even mention
any illicit intercourse of Luther with Bora before his marriage,
though in this satire he makes the wives of Luther, Spalatin, and
Justus Jonas give vent to plentiful obscene remarks touching
other matters. He merely relates — and this only by poet's
licence — how Bora, after overwhelming Luther with reproaches
on account of his alleged attempt to jilt her, finally dragged him
away with her to the wedding.3

Since in this work it is history in the strict sense which speaks,
only such evidence can be admitted against Luther as would be

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 322 ; see above, p. 183.

2 See Enders, " Brief wechsel Luthers," 6, p. 334.

3 See Strobel, " Neue Beitrage zur Literatur," 3, 1, p. 137 ff. Cp.
Hofler, " SB. der k. bohm. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften," 1892,
p. 110 f. Denifle states, "Luther," I2, p. 284, n. 3, that there is a
specimen of the above work in the town library at Mayence.

THE PEASANT-WAR 189

accepted as proof in a court of law, and mere conjectures would
be out of place. We have seen the historic complaint made by
Melanchthon of Luther's " effeminacy " and the " exciting of
his passions by the nuns who pursued him with the utmost
cunning,"1 and have some idea of the scandal created by the
quondam monk through his light-hearted intercourse with these
women who had quitted their seclusion ; we can now under
stand how natural was the gossip to which he himself and his
friends bear witness. It is true that men like Eberliii of Giinz-
burg, the apostate Franciscan, said at the time that the devil
was busy everywhere stirring up " wicked and vexatious sus
picions and calumnies" against Luther, etc.2 Others gave vent
to their spite against the manners of the ex-nuns, who were
bringing the evangel into dispute.3 We can comprehend such
reflections as the following, made at a later date by indignant
Catholic observers, even though in an historical work such as
this we cannot make them our own. " To have remained spot
less amidst such dangers Luther would have to have been an
angel. Whoever has any knowledge of human nature, and
knows that God as a rule punishes pride and haughtiness by this
particular vice, will not wonder that many have their doubts as
to Luther's unblemished life before he took a wife."4

2. The Peasant-War. Polemics

That the preaching of the new Evangel had a great part
in the origin of the frightful peasant rising of 1525 is a
fact, which has been admitted even by many non-Catholic
historians in modern days.

" We are of opinion," P. Schreckenbach writes in 1895, " that
Luther had a large share in the revolution," and he endorses his
opinion by his observations on " Luther's warfare against the
greatest conservative power of the day," and the " ways and
means he chose with which to carry on his war."5 Fr. v. Bczold,
in 1890, in his " History of the German Reformation," remarked
concerning Luther's answer to the hostile treatment he received
from the Diet at Nuremberg (1524), and his allusions to "the
mad, tipsy Princes": "Luther should never have written in
such a way had he not already made up his mind to act as leader
of a Revolution. That he should have expected the German
nation of those days to listen to such passionate language from
the mouth of its ' Evangelist ' and ' Elias ' without being carried
beyond the bounds of law and order, was a na'ivete only to be
explained by his ignorance of the world and his exclusive atten-

1 See above, pp. 145, 177.

2 " Eberlins Samtliche Schriften," ed. L. Enders, 3, p. 165.

3 Eobanus Hessus says of the escaped nuns : " Nulla Phyllis nonnis
est nostris mammosior." Cp. above, p. 125, n. 1.

* Denifle, "Luther," I2, p. 284.

5 " Luther und der Bauernkrieg," Oldenburg, 1895, p. 8.

190 THE APOSTASY

tion to religious interests. Herein lies his greatness and his
weakness."1 Concerning the effects of such language upon the
people, the same historian wrote, as late as 1908: "How else
but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret Luther's
proclamation of Christian freedom and his extravagant strictures
on the parsons and nobles ? "

Luther's Catholic contemporaries condemned in the strong
est manner his share in the unchaining of the revolt ; they
failed entirely to appreciate the " greatness " referred to
above.

• One who was well acquainted with his writings and published
a polemical work in Latin against him at that time, referring to
certain passages, some of which we have already met, makes
the following representations to him on his responsibility in the
Peasant War. It was he who first raised the call to arms, and it
was impossible for him to wash his hands of all share in the
revolt, even though he had told the people that they were not to
make use of force without the consent of the authorities and had
subsequently condemned the rising with violence. " The common
people pay no attention to that," he tells him, " but merely
obey what pleases them in Luther's writings and sermons."
" You declared in your public writings,3 that they were to assail
the Pope and the Cardinals with every weapon available, and
wash their hands in their blood. You called all the bishops who
would not follow your teaching, idolatrous priests and ministers
of the devil ; you said that the bishops deserved to be wiped off
the face of the earth in a great rising." " You called those, ' dear
children of God and true Christians,' who make every effort for
the destruction of the bishoprics and the extermination of
episcopal rule. You said also that whoever obeyed the bishops
was the devil's own servant. You called the monasteries dens
of murderers, and incited the people to pull them down."4

A strong wave of anti-clerical and of politico-social
commotion due to unjust oppression prevailed among the
peasantry in many parts of Germany even before Luther
came forward. But it was the gospel of freedom, the mis
taken approbation found in biblical passages for the desire
for equality among the classes and a juster distribution of
property, as well as the example of the great spiritual up-

1 " Gesch. der deutschen Reformation," Berlin, 1890, p. 447.

2 " Die Kultur der Gegemvart," T. 2, Abt. 5, 1, Berlin, 1908, p. 68.

3 The passages were quoted above, cp. pp. 6 f., 9 f., 49 f., 55 f., 63,
69, 100 f., 107.

4 " Dissertationes quatuor contra M. Lutherum et Lutheranismi
fautores," Moguntise, 1532, fol. 19. See Janssen-Pastor, " Hist, of the
German People " (Engl. trans.), 4, 1900, p. 56 ff.

THE PEASANT-WAR 191

heaval then going on, which rendered the crisis acute, and
incited the peasants to make their extravagant and violent
demands.

An attempt was made to conceal the revolutionary
character of the movement by explaining it as mainly
religious.

The " Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia," was
headed, for instance, by a demand for liberty to preach the
Gospel and for congregations to have the right of choosing
their own pastors.1 It was believed by those who drew up
these Articles that all the claims, even those relating to the
tithes, to hunting, fishing, forest rights, etc., could be proved
from Holy Scripture ; only then, they said, were they ready
to abandon them when they were refuted by Holy Writ; at
the same time, however, they reserved to themselves the
right to make in the future such additional demands as
they might come to recognise as being in accordance with
Scripture. Luther's ideas were also embodied in the thirty
Articles of " Squire Helferich and the Knights Heinz und
Karsthanns," indeed, they were for the most part couched
in the very words of Luther's writings and the 28th
Article swore deadly hostility to all his foes. 2

1 Ed. A. Goetze in " Hist. Vierteljahrsschrift," 4, 1901, p. 1 ff.

2 In Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 607, after a reference to the oppression
of the peasantry, their insolence and desire for innovation, we read :
" In addition to all this there now supervened the preaching of the
new Evangel. ... A higher warrant was bestowed upon the com
plaints and the demands concerning secular and material matters.
. . . The Christian liberty of which the New Testament speaks and
which Luther proclaimed was applied directly to temporal questions.
Paul's words that in Christ there is neither bond nor free became a
weapon. . . . Even the Old Testament was also appealed to. From
the circumstance that God had granted to our first parents dominion
over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the beasts of the field,
they concluded that at least the right to fish and hunt was common
to all. Great opposition was raised, above all, to the taxes due to
the monasteries and clergy, and even the very existence of the monastic
state and temporal authority of the clergy was called into question.
Such ideas were readily fostered among the excited masses when the
new preaching found its way amongst them by word of mouth or in
writings"; p. 701 : "Luther, however, was the man of the Evangel
on whom the eyes of the great mass of the peasants in southern Germany
were directed when their rising commenced." The editors of the
Weimar edition of Luther's writings (18, 1908) remark in the first
introduction to the same (p. 279) : " The rebellion found its encourage
ment and support in Luther's victorious gospel of ecclesiastical reforma
tion ; ultimately, however, it secularised the new gospel. Whence it
came to pass that in the end, not Luther, but rather the religious

192 THE APOSTASY

The peasants in the Rhine province and about Mayence
in their rising in May, 1525, demanded not merely the
liberty to choose their own pastors and to preach the Gospel,
but also that the preachers of the new faith imprisoned in
Mayence should be set free. Their claim to choose their
pastors, which was likewise made elsewhere, for instance, in
the " Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia," signified
nothing less than the intention to fill the posts with preachers
of the new faith.1

" The rebels everywhere either supported or opposed the
Evangelical demands, those of Evangelical views joining
the rebels with the idea that they would be able to enforce
their wishes by this means." This explains why, after the
rising had been put down, the Catholic lords were disposed
"to look on Lutheranism as no better than rebellion."2
These words, written by a Protestant historian, refer to
the Rhine Province, but they are equally applicable else
where. So, too, what he says of this district may also be
said generally, viz. that the enthusiastic expectation, which
was widespread in Lutheran circles, of a great change before
the approaching end of the world, helped to make of the
followers of the new faith supporters of the peasants. Luther
encouraged such fanatical ideas among his readers till the
very outbreak of the revolt. (See below, p. 200 f.)

" What wonder," the same historian says, " that when the
social revolution broke out in the spring, Luther's perse
cuted followers thought they recognised the beginning of
the change, and in many instances made common cause writh
the peasants and the lower classes of the towns. Luther
himself had no wish to carry through his religious enter
prise with the help either of the knights or of the peasants,

fanatics, above all, Thomas Miinzer, drew the excited masses under
their spell and impressed their stamp on the whole movement." Con
cerning Luther's attitude towrards the revolt at the time it was pre
paring, we read on p. 280 : " Up to that time [the spring of 1525],
Luther had taken no direct part in the social movement. He was,
however, without doubt indirectly engaged ; his writings had fallen
like firebrands on the inflammable masses, who misunderstood them,
interpreted them according to their own ideas and forged from them
weapons for their own use."

1 Fritz Herrmann, " Evangelische Regungen zu Mainz in den ersten
Zeiten der Reformation," in " Schriften des Vereins fur Reformations-
gesch.," No. 100, 1910 (p. 275-304), p. 297.

2 F. Herrmann, ibid., p. 298.

THE PEASANT-WAR 193

but his followers were not equal to making the necessary
distinction between the spiritual and the temporal."1

Luther and his preachers had so frequently brought
forward such disparaging and degrading charges against
the secular, and still more against the spiritual authorities, 2
that clear-sighted contemporaries, such as Bartholomew von
Usingen, foretold a revolution.3 as the result of such dis
courses and writings. The destruction of the episcopal
power, which, under the conditions then prevailing, was so
closely bound up with the secular, meant a radical revolu
tion in the law of property obtaining in the German Empire.

The " Christian freedom " of all, the equality of high
and low in the common priesthood, was proclaimed in the
most incautious and seductive terms. The peasants were
taught by itinerant and often fanatical preachers, concerning
their real or alleged rights as vouched for by Holy Scripture.
Thus the esteemed Strasburg preacher, Caspar Hedio, of
the Rhinegau, in a sermon which he delivered on the Wach-
holder Heide, near Erbach, explained to the people his
views on the customary payment of tithes ; his words
acting like a charm : He thought the peasants should pay
tithes only under protest, though they were nevertheless
not to attempt to abrogate the payment by force. Once
roused, however, who was to keep the crowd within these

1 F. Herrmann, p. 296. W. Vogt, " Die Vorgesch. des Bauernkrieges "
(in "SchriftendesVereinsfurReformationsgesch.," 20, 1887), points to
the general expectation prevailing, more particularly in the south-west
of Germany, that a fundamental change in the existing state of things
was imminent. " Every reform, however, even the most trifling, in
the social sphere encroached upon the political and even the ecclesiasti
cal domain, for the nobility and clergy, whose authority and possessions
were the subject of discussion, were at the same time political and eccle
siastical factors. . . . All felt that in the last instance the appeal
would be to force " (p. 142).

2 For examples, see above, p. 152 ff., and below, p. 297 ff. Cp. also P.
Drews, " Entsprach das Staatskirchentum Luthers Ideal ? " Tubingen,
1908, p. 31.

3 Concerning Usingen's utterance of 1523 : " Nescitis populum esse
bestiam . . . quce sanguinem sitit?" etc., cp. N. Paulus, " Barthol. Usin
gen," p. 102. And (ibid.) another striking saying of Usingen concerning
the preacher Culsamer. He declared that he feared Germany would
see a storm similar to that which Constantinople had suffered at the
hands of the iconoclasts (p. 101). The preacher Eberlin von Giinzburg
announced in 1521 : " There will be no end to the impositions of the
clergy until the peasants rise and hang and drown good and bad alike ;
then the cheating will meet with its reward." See Janssen-Pastor,
" Gesch. des deutschen Volkes," 218, p. 490 ff.

194 THE APOSTASY

limits ? In 1524 Hedio had two sermons, preached on this
subject in Strasburg, printed together with a circular letter
addressed to the inhabitants of the Rhinegau, " which, there
can be no doubt, exercised a certain influence upon the
rising there."1 In the circular he proposed, that the people
themselves should go in search of capable preachers if the
ecclesiastical authorities did not send such.2

A far-reaching social movement had been at work among
the peasants, more particularly in many districts of the
south-west of Germany, even previous to the rise of
Lutheranism. They raised protests, which in many
instances were justifiable, against the oppression under
which they laboured. A crisis seemed imminent there as
early as 1513 and 1514, and the feeling was general that a
settlement of the difficulties could only be brought about
by violence. The ferment in many places assumed an
anticlerical character, which was all the more natural
seeing that the landowners and gentry who were the chief
cause of the dissatisfaction were either clergymen, like the
Prince-Bishops, or closely allied with the Church and her
multifarious secular institutions. The ill-feeling against
the clergy was even then being stirred up by exaggerated
descriptions of their idle life, their luxury and their un
worthy conduct.

To seek to represent the movement, as has been done, as
an exclusively social one, is, even for the period before
Luther, not quite correct, although it certainly was mainly
social. Yet it was, as a matter of fact, the new ideas
scattered among the people by Luther and Zwingli, and the
preaching of the apostasy, which brought the unrest so
quickly to a head. The anticlerical ideas of the religious
innovators, combined with social class antagonism, lent an
irresistible force to the rising. Hence the Peasant War
has recently been described on the Protestant side as a
"religious movement," called forth by the discussion of
first principles to which the Reformation gave rise, and
which owed its violent character to the religious contrast
which it brought out.3 The expert on this period who

1 F. Herrmann, loc. cit., p. 297.

2 The circular letter, reprinted in the " Annalen des Verems fur
Nassauishe Gesch.," 17, 1882, p. 16 ff.

3 W. Stolze, " Der deutsche Bauernkrieg, ' Halle, 1907, p. v.

THE PEASANT-WAR 195

writes thus, proves and justifies his opinion, showing that
Zwingli and Luther " were the primary cause " of the War,
not indeed directly, but because once the peasants had
become familiar with the new " biblical " ideas, which were
so favourable to their cause, they refused to stand by and
see such doctrines suppressed by violence, and preferred to
take up arms against the Catholic rulers and their energetic
anti-Reformation measures.1 According to the same writer
it is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the
peasants themselves represented in 'the course of the revolt
as the moving cause, i.e. the social disabilities of which they
complained (for instance in the Twelve Articles), and that
which actually produced the rising.

Nor must it be overlooked that, at the moment when
passions were already stirred up to their highest pitch,
many attempts were made on the Lutheran side to pacify
the people. The catastrophe foreseen affrighted those
who were on the spot, and who feared lest the responsi
bility might fall upon their shoulders. Quite recently
a forgotten pamphlet, written by an anonymous Lutheran
preacher and dating from the commencement of the move
ment, has been republished, in which, after some pious
exhortations, the author expresses his firm hope that the
fear of God would succeed in triumphing over the excited
passions ; even biblical quotations against misuse of the
new evangelical freedom arc to be found in this well-inten
tioned booklet.2 Then as now attention was drawn to
Luther's doctrine concerning obedience to the powers that
be, which required of " the true Christian " that he
should even " allow himself to be flayed," and out of love
of the cross renounce all desire for revenge (xiv. 4).

Notwithstanding all this, the great responsibility which
Lutheranism shares in the matter remains. " It is no
purely historical and objective view," says another Protes-

1 Cp. particularly p. 22 ff. In " Archiv. f. Reformationsgesch.,"
1909, Hft. 1, p. 1GO, the author's blame of the " previous prejudiced
insistence on the social side of the Peasant War " meets with recog
nition ; we read there, " the emphasis laid on the religious side by
Stolze appears to be thoroughly justified."

2 " Die scharf Metz wider die, die sich evangelisch nennen und
doch dem Evangelium entgegen sind," 1525, ed. W. Lucke, in " Flug-
schriften aus den ersten Jahren der Reformation," vol. i., No. 3, Halle,
1906

196 THE APOSTASY

tant historian, " but rather an apologetic and false as
sumption, which attempts to deny the fact, that Luther's
evangelical preaching most strongly encouraged and
brought to a crisis the social excitement which had been
simmering among the lowest classes since the fifteenth
century. The agitation stirred up by the preachers who
followed in Luther's footsteps contributed in a still greater
degree towards this result."1

Special research in the different parts of the wide area
covered by the rising has to-day confirmed even more
completely the opinion that the accusations urged against
Lutheranism by the olden supporters of the Church were,
after all, not so unjust in this particular. The much-abused
Johann Cochlarsus, who made such charges, is rightly spoken
of by the last-mentioned historian as being " more suited "
to depict that revolutionary period than the diplomatic and
cautious Sleidanus, or the Protestant theological admirers
and worshippers of Luther.2 The learned Hieronymus
Emser wrote, in the stormy year 1525, a work " Against

1 W. Maurenbreeher, " Gesch. der kath. Reformation," 1, Nord-
lingen, 1880, p. 257. Janssen, in his " Hist, of the German People,"
has brought this point out clearly. See more particularly (Engl. trans.)
volume iii. : " The populace inflamed by preaching and the press,"
and volume iv. : " The social revolution," where it is pointed out that
even apart from Luther's action and that of his followers, risings were
imminent, but that the " social revolution first received the stamp of
universal and inhuman ferocity from the conditions created or de
veloped among the people by the religious disturbances." Concerning
the effect of the sermons and pamphlets on the people we read, in
the original, vol. 218, p. 490, n. 5, in a letter of Archdxike Ferdinand
to the Pope, that the deluded people believed, " se Dei negotium agere in
templis, coenobiis, monasteriis diruendis," etc. Johann Adam Mohler, in
the Church History (ed. Gams), which appeared after his death, com
pares (3, p. 118) the effects of the preaching of the liberty of the chil
dren of God in the primitive Church, and describes the pure, virtuous
life of self-renunciation which resulted, how the lower classes learnt
to be content with their lot and the slaves became more faithful to their
masters. " The contrast between the effects of the old gospel and the
new evangel gave the most convincing proof of the difference between
them." " From the spirit of the flesh which combined with the re
ligious in Luther's writings to form one living whole, a tendency to
revolt gradually spread over all Germany ; ecclesiastical and secular,
divine and human, spiritual and corporal, all ran riot together in the
people's minds ; everywhere prevailed a fanatical, perverted longing
for the liberty of the children of God " (p. 116). When Luther urged the
Princes to severity in repressing the movement, his ruling idea was " to
repress the opinion that elements dangerous to public order were
embodied in his principles " (p. 118).

2 W. Maurenbreeher, " Studien und Skizzen zur Gesch. der Re-
formationszeit," 1874, p. 22.

THE PEASANT-WAR 197

Luther's abominations," a large part of which is devoted to
proving what is already explained in the sub-title of the
book, " How, and why, and in what words, Luther, in his
books, urges and exhorts to rebellion." Emser also gave
indignant expression to his conviction in some verses
intended for general circulation.

Luther was directly implicated in the beginning of the
rising when the " Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia "
was forwarded to him by the insurgents. The peasants
invited him, with confidence, " to declare what was of
Divine right."1 Luther's honoured name came first in the
list of learned men who were to be consulted. The Witten
berg professor grasped the full importance of the moment ;
he felt that the direction of German affairs had been
placed in his hands. Naturally he did not wish to be the
one to let loose the terrible storm, nor did he, as the repre
sentative and "deliverer" of the people, wish to repulse
the movement which had been so long favourable to him,
and the demands of which were, in part at least, perfectly
justifiable. He found himself in a position exactly similar
to that which he had occupied formerly in regard to the
Knights, who were anxious to take up arms, and with whom
he had, up to a certain point, made common cause, but
whose project afterwards appeared to him too dangerous
and compromising to the cause of the evangel. In the
question of the Twelve Articles it was difficult, nay, im
possible, for him not to give offence either to the gentry or
to the populace, or to avoid barring the way for the new
evangel in one direction or the other. He determined to
seek a middle course. But the tragic consequences of the
position he had always assumed, the circumstances of the
day and his unrestrained temper, caused him to give mortal
offence to both sides, to the lords as well as to the peasants.
First, he flung his " Exhortation to Peace " on the field of
battle — no mere figure of speech, as, at the time of writing,

1 Cp. the writing, " Handlung, Ordmmg und Instruktion," in which
the delegates to be chosen to negotiate with the Swabian League on
the question of " divine law," are referred, among others, to " Hertzog
Friederich von Sachsen sampt D. Martin Luther, oder Philipp Melanc-
thon oder Pomeran [Bugenhagen]." In the introduction of the Weim.
ed. (see above, p. 191, n. 2), p. 280. Luther refers to this passage in
his " Ermanunge zum Fride auff die 12 Artikel" with the words:
" particularly as they appeal to me by name in the other writing."

198 THE APOSTASY

the tumult had already broken out and the horrors of
Weinsberg been enacted (April 16, 1525), though of this
Luther was ignorant when he composed the pamphlet.
Formerly this writing was thought to have been written in
May, but as a matter of fact it belongs to the period just
after April 18.1

In this writing, as well as in the two following which
treat of the rising, certain sides of Luther's character are
displayed which must be examined from the historical and
psychological standpoint. The second, which was the out
come of the impressions made by the bloody contest,
consists of only one -sheet and is entitled " Against the
murderous, thieving hordes of Peasants," or more shortly,
" Against the insurgent Peasants " ; it, too, was written
before the complete defeat of the rebels in the decisive days
of May.2 The third is the " Circular letter concerning the
stern booklet against the Peasants," of the same year, and
belongs to the time when the conquerors, flushed with
victory, were raging against the vanquished.3

The three writings must be considered in conjunction
with the circumstances which called them forth. Written
in the very thick of the seething ferment, they glow with
all the fire of their author, whose personal concern in the
matter was so great. Whoever weighs their contents at the
present day will be carried back to the storm of that period,
and will marvel at the strength of the spirit which inspires
them, but at the same time be surprised at the picture
the three together present. He will ask, and not without
cause, which of the three is most to be regretted ; surely
the third, for the unmistakable blunders of the author,
who gives the fullest play to feeling and fancy to the
detriment of calm reason, go on increasing in each pamphlet.

In. the first, the " Exhortation," the author seeks to put
the truth before, and to pacify the Princes and gentry, more
particularly those Catholics who, subsequent to the Diet of
Nuremberg, in 1524, had entered the lists against the inno
vations. He also would fain instruct and calm the peasants,

1 The pamphlet in " Werke," Weini. ed., 18, 1908, p. 279 ff. Erl.
ed., 242, p. 271 ff. For the date see ibid., Weim. ed., 18, p. 281, and
Kostliii-Kawerau, 1, p. 793.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 344 ff. ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 303 ff.

3 Ibid., p. 375ff. = 310ff.

THE PEASANT-WAR 199

his " dear Masters and Brothers/' Had Luther been endowed
with a clear perception of the position of affairs, and seen
the utter uselessness of any attempt merely to stem the
movement, he would not at this critical juncture have
still further irritated the rebels by the attacks upon the
gentry, into which he allowed himself to break out, and which
were at once taken advantage of.

He cries, for instance, to the authorities : " Your government
consists in nothing else but fleecing and oppressing the poor
common people in order to support your own magnificence and
arrogance, till they neither can nor will endure it. The sword is
at your throat ; you think you sit fast in the saddle and that it
will be impossible to overthrow you. But you will find that your
self-confidence and obstinacy will be the breaking of your necks."
" You are bringing it upon yourselves and wish to get your heads
broken. There is no use in any further warning or admonishing."
" God has so ordained it that your furious raging neither can
nor shall any longer be endured. You must become different
and give way to the Word of God ; if you refuse to do so willingly,
then you will be forced to it by violence and riot. If these
peasants do not accomplish it, others must."1

He admonishes the peasants to suffer in a Christian manner,
and to be ready to endure even persecution and oppression
willingly. Such is the spirit of the evangel which he has always
preached. The gospel made the material life to consist in nothing
else but suffering, injustice, crosses, patience and contempt for
all temporal goods, even life itself. Hence they must not base
their earthly claims on the gospel. " Murderous prophets " had,
however, come amongst them who, by their false interpretation
of the Bible, injured the cause of the gospel and incited men to
the use of force, which was forbidden. He himself had been so
successful and yet had abhorred violence, which made the spread
of his doctrine so much the more marvellous. " Now you inter
fere," you wish to help the cause of the evangel, but you " are
damaging it " by your violent action. The effect of these words
which form the central point of his train of thought he destroys
by fresh attacks upon the lords and Princes : If they " forbid
the preaching of the gospel and oppress the people so unbear
ably, then they deserve that God should cast them from their
thrones."2 Luther fancies he already sees the hands stretched
out to execute the sentence, and concludes by addressing the
Princes thus : " Tyrants seldom die in their beds, as a rule they
perish by a bloody death. Since it is certain that you govern
tyrannically and savagely, forbidding the preaching of the
gospel and fleecing and oppressing the people, there is no comfort
or hope for you but to perish as those like you have perished."3

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 293 f. = 273 f.

2 Ibid., p. 300 = 277.

3 Ibid., p. 329 f. = 296 f. In the Weim. ed., 18, p. 790, it is rightly

200 THE APOSTASY

Such words as these were scarcely in place on the very
eve of the terrible struggle. Luther, in his excitement and his
anxiety concerning his teaching, was not a fit judge of the
condition of things. It is true that he fully realised that
many of the burdens on account of which the peasants had
risen in revolt were far too oppressive,1 and the thoughts
which he expresses on this matter are such as might well be
taken to heart for all time. But he places the interests of
his interpretation of the Bible so much in the foreground
that he declares, at the very outset, that what pleased him
best in the Peasants' " Articles," was their " readiness to
be guided by clear, plain, undeniable passages of Scripture ;
since it is right and fair that no man's conscience should
be instructed and guided otherwise than by Holy Writ."2

Never has the liberty of Bible interpretation been pro
claimed under circumstances more momentous. Luther
could not have been ignorant of the fact, that the armed
multitude and their preachers, particularly the fanatical
Anabaptists, had also, like him, set up a new interpretation
of their own of the Bible, one, ho\vever, which agreed so well
with their leanings that they would never relinquish it for
any other.

Owing to the divergence of their teaching, and to the fact
that they were led by fanatics of Miinzer's persuasion,
Luther came to see in the warlike disturbances a mere work
of the devil ; hence he himself, the chief foe of hell, feels it
his duty to enter the lists against Satan ; the latter is seek
ing " to destroy and devour " both him and his evangel,
using the bloodthirsty spirit of revolt as his instrument,
but let the devil devour him and the result will be a belly-
cramp.3 In his excitement he fancies he sees sjgns and
wonders. " I and my friends will pray to God that He may
either reconcile you or else graciously prevent events from
taking the course you wrish, though the terrible signs and
wonders of this time make me sad of heart."4 Like the end
of the world, which was supposed to be approaching, the

remarked that Luther sees in the peasants of South Germany, to whom
the " Ermanunge zum Fricle " was principally addressed, perse
cuted men, and that from a distance he welcomes their rising with
a certain sympathy.

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 717 ; cp. p. 792 ff.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 291 ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 272.

3 Ibid., p. 316 =p. 288. * Ibid., p. 334 = p. 299.

THE PEASANT-WAR 201

" signs in the heavens and the wonders on the earth " play
their part in his mind. " They forebode no good to you,"
he prophesies to the authorities, " and no good will come
to you," for " the many gruesome signs which have taken
place till now in the heavens and on the earth point to some
great misfortune and a striking change in the German land."1
Shortly after the publication of the so-called " Exhorta
tion to Peace," the news reached Wittenberg of the
sanguinary encounters which had already taken place. Every
thing was upside clown. What dire confusion would ensue
should the peasants prove victorious ? Luther now asked
himself what the new evangel could win supposing the
populace gained the upper hand, and also how the rulers
who had hitherto protected his cause would fare in the
event of the rebels being successful in the Saxon Electorate
and at Wittenberg. Says the most recent Protestant
biographer of Luther : " Now that the rebellion was directed
against the Princes whose kindness and pure intention
were so well known to him, passionate rage with the rabble
took the place of discriminating justice."2 The fanatical
mob that accompanied Thomas Miinzer whetted his tongue.
We can understand how Luther, now thoroughly alarmed
by what he sawr on his journeys and preaching-tours through
out the insurgent districts, and by the daily accounts of
unheard-of atrocities committed by the rebels, was anxious
to take a vigorous part in the attempt to quench the flame.
To his mind, with its constitutional disability to perceive
more than one thing at a time, nothing is visible but the
horrors of the armed rebellion. In " furious wrath " he now
mercilessly assails the rebels, allying himself entirely with
the Princes. The tract " Against the murderous Peasants,"
comprising only four pages, was composed about May 4.3

" Pure devilry," he says in this passionate and hurriedly
composed pamphlet, is urging on the peasants ; they " rob and
rage and behave like mad dogs." " Therefore let all who are
able, hew them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in
secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous,
noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel. You must kill him as

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 293 -p. 273.

2 A. Hausrath, " Luthers Leben," 2, p. 55.

3 K. Muller, " Kirche, Gemeinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther," 1910,
p. 140.

202 THE APOSTASY

you would a mad dog ; if you do not fall upon him, he will fall
upon you and the whole land."1

He now will have it that they are not fighting for the Lutheran
teaching, nor serving the evangel. " They serve the devil under
the appearance of the evangel ... I believe that the devil
feels the approach of the Last Day and therefore has recourse to
such unheard-of trickery. . . . Behold what a powerful prince
the devil is, how he holds the world in his hands and can knead
it as he pleases." " I believe that there are 110 devils left in hell,
but all of them have entered into the peasants."2

He therefore invites the authorities to intervene with all their
strength. " Whatever peasants are killed in the fray, are lost
body and soul and are the devil's own for all eternity." The
authorities must resolve to " chastise and slay " so long as they
can raise a finger : " Thou, O God, must judge and act. It may
be that whoever is killed on the side of the authorities is really a
martyr in God's cause."3 A happier death no man could die.
So strange are the times that a Prince may merit heaven more
certainly by shedding blood than by saying prayers.

Luther does not forget to exhort the evangelically-minded
rulers to remember to offer the " mad peasants," even at the
last, " terms, but where this is of no avail to have recourse at
once to the sword." Before this, however, he says : "I will
not forbid such rulers as are able, to chastise and slay the peasants
without previously offering them terms, even though the gospel
does not permit it."4

He is not opposed to indulgence being shown those who have
been led astray. He recommends, that the many " pious folk "
who, against their will, were compelled to join the diabolical
league, should be spared. At the same time, however, he declares,
that they like the others, are " going to the devil. . . . For a
pious Christian ought to be willing to endure a hundred deaths
rather than yield one hair's breadth to the cause of the peasants."6

It has been said it was for the purpose of liberating those who
had been compelled to join the insurgents, that he admonished
the Princes in such strong terms, even promising them heaven
as the reward for their shedding of blood, and that the over
throw of the revolt by every possible means was, though in this
sense only, " for Luther a real work of charity." This, however,

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 358; Erl. ed., 242, p. 304.

2 Ibid., p. 358 f. — p. 305. "The violent words of the circular
letter ' Wider die . . . Bawreii ' were really directed against his
bitter opponent Thomas Miinzer, the ' arch-devil of Muhlhausen,' and
the seditious Thuringian peasants." So runs the introduction of
the Weimar edition, with which we may, to some extent, agree, though
the pamphlet speaks throughout of the rebellious peasants generally ;
on the very first page we read, however : " More particularly the
arch-devil who reigns at Muhlhausen and who incites to nothing but
pillage, murder, and bloodshed."

3 Ibid., p. 360 ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 308.

4 Ibid., p. 35<J=p. 300. 5 Ibid., p. 361 = p. 308.

THE PEASANT- WAR 203

is incorrect, for he does not speak of saving and sparing those
who had been led astray until after the passage where he says
that the Princes might gain heaven by the shedding of blood ;
nor is there any inner connection between the passages ; he
simply says : " There is still one matter to which the authorities
might well give attention." " Even had they 110 other cause for
whetting their sword against the peasants, this [the saving of
those who had been led astray] would be a more than sufficient
reason." After the appeal for mercy towards those who had
been forced to fight, there follows the cry : " Let whoever is
able help in the slaughter ; should you die in the struggle, you
could not have a more blessed death." He concludes with
Romans xiii. 4 ; concerning the authorities : " who bear not
the sword in vain, avengers to execute wrath upon him that doth
evil."1

While his indignant pen stormed over the paper, he had been
thinking with terror of the consequences of the bloody contest,
and of the likelihood of the peasants coming off victorious. He
writes, " We know not whether God may not intend to prelude
the Last Day, which cannot be far distant, by allowing the devil
to destroy all order and government, and to reduce the world to
a scene of desolation, so that Satan may obtain the ' Kingdom
of this world.' "'-

The rebels, who had burnt the monasteries and de
molished the strongholds and castles in Thuringia and in
Luther's own country, were soon to suffer a succession of
great reverses. Miinzer, the prophet, was defeated in the
battle of Frankenhausen on May 15, 1525, and after being
put to the torture, made his confession and was executed.
Before his end he with great composure implored the
Princes to have mercy on the poor, oppressed people.
Luther said of his death, that his confession was " mere
devilish stupidity " and that his torture should have been
made much more severe ; Melanchthon, in his history of
Miinzer, also regretted that lie had not been forced to con
fess that he received his " Revelations " from the devil ; he,
too, did not think it enough that he should have been
tortured only once. Luther, however, was not sorry to see
the last of him. " Miinzer, with some thousands of others,
has unexpectedly been made to bite the dust."3

The open supporters of the rising, on account of his
second tract, called Luther a hypocrite and flatterer of the

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, and p. 359 = p. 306.

2 Ibid., p. 3<iOff. = 307ff.

3 Melanchthon's and Luther's words given more in detail in Haus-
rath, " Luthers Leben," 2, p. 59.

204 THE APOSTASY

Princes.1 Even some of his best friends could not under
stand his ferocity in inciting the lords against the peasants,
more especially as it seemed to encourage the victors in
their savage treatment of the prisoners, which in some
places resembled a massacre.

Luther's friend, Johann lliihel, the Mansfeld councillor,
wrote to him, at the time when the pamphlet against the
peasants was making the greatest sensation, expressing his
misgivings. He reminded him of the words he made use of
in the passage last quoted concerning the " scene of desola
tion " into which the world seemed about to be transformed.
This prophecy might prove only too true. " I am sore
afraid," he says, " and really it seems as though you were
playing the prophet to the gentry, for, indeed, they will
leave nothing but a desolate land to their heirs ; the people
arc being chastised so severely that I fear the land of
Thuringia and the County [of Mansfeld] will recover from it
but slowly. . . . Here they [the victorious party] give
themselves up to nothing but robbery and murder."2 Five
days later Riihel again wrote to Luther in tones of warning,
saying that he meant well by him, but must nevertheless
point out the effect his pamphlet " Against the Peasants "
had had on the minds of some : " Be it as it may, it still
appears strange to many who are favourably disposed
towards you that you should allow the tyrants to slaughter
without mercy and tell them that they may thus become
martyrs ; it is openly said at Leipzig that because the
Elector has just died [May 5, 1525] you fear for your own
skin and (latter Duke George by approving his undertaking
[i.e. his energetic steps against the rising] out of fear for
your own skin. I will not presume to judge, but commit it
to your own spirit, for I know the saying : ' qui accipit
gladium gladio peribit,' and, again, that the secular power
' bearcth not the sword in vain ... an avenger to execute
wrath ' [Horn. xiii. 4]. ... I mean well, and beg you to re
member me in your prayers."3 The writer tells Luther that

1 Luther to Amsdorf, May 30, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 182:
" adulator principum." Luther pronounces the " Curse of the Lord "
on those Magdeburg preachers who had sided with the rebels.

2 On May 21, 1525, Kawerau's edition of the letter in " Schriften
des Vereins fur Reformationsgesch.," No. 100, 1910, p. 339 (" Brief
wechsel," 5, p. 177).

3 Kawerau's edition, ibid., p. 342 (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 180).

THE PEASANT- WAR 205

"the result may well be that the victors in thus slaughter
ing without mercy will appeal to Luther, and that thus
even the innocent will be condemned in Luther's name."1
Riihel wras a good Lutheran, and his words bear witness to a
deep-seated devotion to Luther's spirit and guidance. In
his strange zeal for the evangel he urges Luther in this same
letter to invite the Archbishop of Mayence and Magdeburg
to secularise himself and take a wife.2

Luther's intimate friend, Nicholas Hausmann, was also
" rather horrified and amazed " at the writing.3 Complaints
came from Zwickau that not only the common people but
also many of the learned were falling away from him ; it
was thought that his manner of writing was very unbecom
ing, and that he had been unmindful of the poor. The
burgomaster of Zwickau maintained that the tract against
the peasants was " not theological," i.e. not worthy of a
theologian.4 " A storm of displeasure broke out against

1 Cp. K. Miiller above (p. 201, n. 3), p. 148, where another explanation
is given which, however, cannot stand. Miiller, p. 140 ff., deals with
Barge's " Karlstadt " (vol. ii.), and Barge's reply to his criticism.
Barge was of opinion that "it is plain the princes and their mercenaries
[in their ruthless treatment of the conquered peasants] understood
Luther aright" (" Fruhprotestantisches Gemeindechristentum," 1909,
p. 333). " Luther, in his pamphlet against the peasants, gave high
sanction to the impure lust for blood which had been kindled in the
souls of hundreds and thousands who played the part of hangmen.
. . . By seeking to exalt the cynical thirst for revenge into a religious
sentiment he has stained the cause of the Reformation more than he
could have done even by allying himself with the rebels " (" Karl
stadt," 2, 1905, p. 357).

2 "Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 308 (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 186). "I
would that in these perilous days you would write a letter of consola
tion and exhortation to my most gracious lord of Magdeburg concern
ing his making a change in his mode of life ; you understand what I
mean. But please send me a copy. I purpose going to Magdeburg
to-day to take steps in the matter. Pray God in heaven to give His
grace in this serious work and undertaking. Be hopeful ; you under
stand me ; it cannot be committed to writing. For God's sake
implore, seek and pray that grace and strength may be bestowed on
me for the work." Words so pious concerning such a business prove
how far men may be carried a\vay by their own prepossession.

3 Cp. Kolde, " Analecta Lutherana," p. 64.

4 Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, l,p. 715, with the references p. 794 and Weim.
ed., 18, p. 376, Introduction. E. Rolffs (" Preuss. Jahrbiicher," 15,
1904, p. 481) : "When, incited thereto by his evangel of the freedom
of a Christian man, the oppressed and downtrodden peasantry sought
by flame and bloodshed to secure for themselves an existence fit for
human beings, then he no longer understood his German people.
And when, thereupon, he wrote his frightful book, 'Against the
murderous and thieving hordes of Peasants,' the German people also
ceased to understand him."

206 THE APOSTASY

Luther ... his ' stab, slay, hew down ' sounded like
mockery in the ears of the people when the aristocratic
bands were bathing in the blood of the vanquished. . . .
The fact is that Luther was not in his heart so indifferent as
he made himself out to be in the circular-letter he wrote in
defence of his ' severe booklet.' '51

Before composing the circular-letter Luther sent a lively
letter to Uiihel protesting that he was ready to stand by all
he had written, and that his conscience was " right in the
sight of God." " If there are some innocent people among
them, God will surely take care to save and preserve them.
But there is cockle among the peasantry. They do not listen
to the Word [but to Munzer], and arc mad, so that they
must be made to listen to the virga and the muskets, and
. . . serve them right ! " " Whoever has seen Munzer may
well say that he has seen the devil incarnate, in his utmost
fury. O Lord God, where such a spirit prevails among the
peasants it is high time for them to be slaughtered like mad
dogs. Perhaps the devil feels the approach of the Last Day,
therefore he stirs up all this strife. . . . But God is mightier
and wiser."2

Elsewhere Luther declares that owing to this booklet
everything God had wrought for the world by his means
was now forgotten ; all were against him and threatened
him with death. He had even lived to see the phrase,
that " the lords might merit heaven by shedding their
blood," regarded — though perhaps only ironically— as a
denial of his doctrine that there was no possibility of
deserving heaven by works. " God help us," they cried,
" how has Luther so far forgotten himself ! He who
formerly taught that a man could arrive at grace and be
saved only by faith alone ! "3

The effect of the reproaches of excessive severity showed
itself, nevertheless, to a certain extent in the pamphlet
which Luther composed between the 17th and 22nd May on
the defeat of Thomas Munzer. The title runs : "A terrible

1 Hausrath, " Luthers Leben," 2, p. 58 f.

* " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 300 (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 181). " This
rabble [the peasants under Thomas Munzer] was an enemy of the
evangel, and its leaders bitter opponents of the Lutheran teaching."
Introduction to the circular- letter. Weim. ed., 18, p. 376.

3 Luther's own way of putting the objection, " Werke," Weim. ed.,
18, p. 399; Erl. ed., 242, p. 331. Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, ibid.

THE PEASANT-WAR 207

account of the judgment of God on Thomas Mlinzer, wherein
God plainly gives the lie to his spirit and condemns it."1
This writing, it is true, does not deal so directly with the
peasant rising as the two previous ones, and the " circular-
letter " to be treated of below ; its chief object is to cite the
unfortunate termination of Munzer's enterprise as a practical
refutation of the prophetical office he had assumed. But,
after the warning which the author addresses to " all dear
Germans," not excluding the rebellious peasants, against
Munzer's co-religionists, as the " noxious, false prophets,"
he concludes with this timely exhortation : "Of the lords
and authorities I would make two requests, first that if they
prove victorious they be not over-elated, but fear God, in
whose sight they are very culpable, and secondly, that they
be merciful to the prisoners and to those who surrender, as
God is merciful to everyone who resigns himself into His
hands and humbles himself."

The writing referred to on Miinzcr's defeat gives examples
of some of the fanatical letters written by the leader of the
Anabaptists. It was an easy task for Luther to expose their
fanaticism and danger. The fellow's end " made it plain that
God had condemned the spirit of revolt, and also the rebels
themselves." With bitter mockery he puts these words into
Miinzcr's mouth : " I, a befouled prophet, am borne along
on a hurdle to the tower of Heldrungen." (Luther knew
nothing as yet of Munzer's death, but only of his imprison
ment in Heldrungen.) Therefore they ought to slay these
" dangerous false prophets whom the judgment of God had
unmasked, and return to peace and obedience." The
fanatics " who teach wrongly and falsely " are not to be
regarded as leaders of the people ; "in future the people
must beware of them, and strive to preserve body and soul
through the true Word of God."

In order, however, to give an answer to all the " wise
acres, who wished to teach him how he should write,"2 he
at once composed the third work on the subject of the
rising, which was now practically at an end. This is the

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 367 ff. ; Erl. ed., 65, p. 12 ff. The
date is determined by K. Muller in the work quoted above, p. 201, n. 3,
p. 144.

2 In the sermon at Wittenberg on June 4, 1525, Kostlin-Kawerau,
1, p. 715.

208 THE APOSTASY

" Circular-letter on the severe booklet against the Peasants,"
dedicated to the Mansfeld Chancellor, Caspar Miiller, one
of those who had informed him of the numerous complaints
made against him.

The concluding words, in which wo hear the real Luther
speaking, mark its purpose : " What I teacli and write, remains
true, though the whole world should fall to pieces over it. If
people choose to take up a strange attitude towards it, then I
will do the same, and we shall see who is right in the end."1 Such
words are sufficient of themselves to give an idea of the tone
which he adopts in this work, in which he goes beyond anything
he had already said.

At the commencement lie bravely grapples with the opposition
he has encountered. " ' There, there,' they boast, ' we see
Luther's spirit, and that he teaches the shedding of blood without
mercy ; it must be the devil who speaks through him ! ' ' Thus
everybody is ready to fall on him, such is the ingratitude dis
played towards the " great, and bright light of the evangel."
" Who is able to gag a fool ? " His accusers were " doubtless
also rebels." But " a rebel does not deserve a reasonable answer,
for he will not accept it ; the only way to answer such foul-
mouthed rascals is with the fist, till their noses dribble. The
peasants would not listen to him or let him speak, therefore their
ears must be opened by musket bullets so that their heads fly
into the air. . . . I will not listen to any talk of mercy, but will
give heed to what God's WTord demands."

" Therefore my booklet is right and true though all the world
should be scandalised at it."2

He attacks those who " advocate mercy so beautifully, now
that the peasants have been defeated." " It is easy to detect you,
you ugly black devil"; every robber might as well come, and,
after having been " sentenced by the judge to be beheaded, cry :
* But Christ teaches that you are to be merciful.' " " This is
just what the defenders of the peasants are doing " when they
" sing their song of mercy " ; they themselves are the " veriest
bloodhounds, for they wish vice to go unpunished."3

" Here, as in many other places, where Luther has to defend
his standpoint against attack," Kostlin says of this writing,
" he draws the reins tighter instead of easing them." " Here he
no longer sees fit to say even one word on behalf of the peasants,
notwithstanding the real grievances which had caused the
rising."4

At a time, when, after their victory, many of the lords, both
Catholic and Lutheran, were raging with the utmost cruelty
against all the vanquished, even against those who had been drawn

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 401 ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 334.

2 Ibid., p. 384ff.=pp. 311-14.

3 Ibid., p. 387f.=pp. 315-16.

4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 715, 717.

THE PEASANT WAR 209

into the rising through no fault of their own, at a time when the
loudest exhortations to mercy would have been far more in place,
he unthinkingly pours forth such passionate words as these :
" If wrath prevails in the Empire then we must be resigned and
endure the punishment, or humbly sue for pardon." It is true
that those " who are of God's Kingdom [viz. true Christians]
must show mercy towards all and pray for them," but they must
not " interfere with the secular power and its work, but rather
assist and further it " ; " this wrath of the secular power [this
at the moment entirely engrosses his thoughts] is not the least
part of the Divine mercy." "What a fine sort of mercy would
that be, to show pity to thieves and murderers and to allow
myself to be murdered, dishonoured and robbed ? " " What
more naughty was ever heard of than a mad rabble and a peasant
gorged with food and drink and grown powerful ? "*

" As I wrote then, so I write now : Let no one take pity on
the hardened, obstinate and blinded peasants, who will not
listen : let whoever can and is able, hew down, stab and slay
them as one would a mad dog." "It is plain that they are
traitorous, disobedient and rebellious thieves, robbers, murderers
and blasphemers, so that there is not one of them who has not
deserved to suffer death ten times over without mercy." " The
masters have learnt what there is behind a rebel ... an ass
must be beaten and the rabble be governed by force."2

The inflammatory letter proceeds to deal with the objections
brought against the writer ; in any case, gainsayers argued, inno
cent persons who had been dragged into the rising by the peasants
would " suffer injustice in Cod's sight by being executed."
Even on this point, on which previously he had spoken with
more mildness, he now refuses to surrender. " First I say that no
injustice is done them," for that no Christian man stayed in the
ranks of the rebels ; and even if such fellows had fought only
under compulsion, " do you think they are thereby excused ? "
" Why did they allow themselves to be coerced ? " They ought
rathe* to have suffered death at the hands of the peasants than
accompany them ; owing to the general contempt for the evangel
God ordains that even the innocent should be punished ; besides,
the innocent ever had to suffer in time of war. " We Germans,
who are much worse than the olden Jews, and yet are not exiled
and slaughtered, are the first to murmur, become impatient
and seek to justify ourselves, refusing to allow even a portion
of our nation to be slaughtered."3

He then boldly confesses his more profound theological view
of the sanguinary war : " The intention of the devil was to lay
Germany waste, because he was unable to prevent in any other
way the spread of the evangel."4

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 390 f. ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 319, 320.

2 Ibid., pp. 392-4 = 322, 324.

3 Ibid., pp. 394, 390; Erl. ed., 242, pp. 324, 327.
* Ibid., p. 397 = 328.

ir.— p

210 THE APOSTASY

Some of the excuses scattered throughout the pamphlet in
reply to the objections, whether of his foes, or of critics among
the adherents of the new faith, are decidedly unfortunate. Offence
had been given by his inciting " everyone who could and was
able " against the rebels, and setting up every man as at once
" judge and executioner,"1 instead of leaving this to the authori
ties. Needless to say he sticks to his guns. With rhetorical
vehemence, he declares that rebels " fall upon the Lord with
swords drawn." Rebellion deserves neither judgment nor mercy,
there is nothing for it but to slaughter without compunction."2

He now says he had never taught, " that mercy was not to be
shown to the prisoners and those who surrendered, as I am
accused of having done ; my booklet proves the contrary."3 In
point of fact his " booklet," i.e. the pamphlet " Against the
murderous Peasants," does not prove the " contrary."

So far he had said nothing concerning mercy towards the
prisoners ; this he was to do only later. In his circular-letter
he protests — it is to be hoped to some purpose — " I do not wish
to encourage the ferocious tyrants, or to approve their raging,
for I hear that some of my young squires are behaving beyond
measure cruelly to the poor people." Now, he speaks strongly,
though rather late in the day, against the " ferocious, raging,
senseless tyrants who even after the battle are not sated with
blood," and even threatens to write a special pamphlet against
such tyrants. " But such as these," so he excuses himself
concerning his previous utterances, " I did not undertake to
instruct," but merely " the pious Christian authorities."

His opponents, who sympathised with the lot of the van
quished, asked why he did not also admonish the authorities
who were not pious. He replies that this was not part of his
duty : "I say once more, for the third time, that I wrote
merely for the benefit of those authorities who were disposed to
act rightly and in a Christian manner."4 Even in this letter he
again incites against the peasants, everyone who can and by
whatever means : he allows, as stated above, anyone to kill
the rebels, openly or by stealth, nor does he retract the sentence,
that " every man " who would and was able ought to act to
wards them as both " judge and executioner " ; finally he declares
that he is unable to blame the severity of such authorities as
do not act in a Christian manner, i.e. " without first offering
terms." In a word, he absolutely refuses to remedy the mis
takes into which his passion had hurried him, but takes pleasure
in still further exaggerating them in spite of the scandal caused.

" The Catholic bishops at once laid the blame of the
peasant rising at the door of the ' great murderer ' of
Wittenberg," so writes Luther's most recent biographer,

1 " Against the murderous Peasants," ibid., p. 358 = 304.

2 Ibid., p. 398f. = 330.

3 Ibid., p. 399 = 331. 4 Ibid., p. 399f. = 330-3.

THE PEAS ANT- WAR 211

" as having been his work.1 The peasants themselves in
many instances believed this, while Luther himself ad
mitted a certain complicity. ' They went out from us ; but
they are not of us,' he says in the words of the First Epistle
of St. John (ii. 19). The natural connection of ideas neces
sarily implied that the spirit of reform which had been let
loose was not to work on the Church alone. If all that was
rotten in the Church was to fall, why should so much that
was rotten in the Empire remain ? If all the demands of
the Papacy were to be rejected, why should those of squire
dom be held sacred ? If Luther might treat Duke George
of Saxony and King Henry VIII of England as fools and
scoundrels, why should more regard be shown to the
smaller fry, the petty counts and lords ? If the peasant, by
virtue of the common priesthood of all Christians, was
capable of reforming the Church, why should he not have
his say in the question of hunting-rights and the right of
pasture ? The kernel of the Wittenberg preaching was that
all man-made ordinances were worthless, and that one
thing only was to be considered, viz. the Word of God.
The Pope was Antichrist, the Emperor a scarecrow, the
Princes and Bishops simple dummies. How could such
words of Luther fail to be seized on with avidity by the
oppressed, down-trodden, and shamelessly victimised
peasantry ? The forces which, owing to the religious
disturbances, now broke loose, would, however, have done
their work even without Luther's teaching."

It was not only the " Catholic bishops," however, who
accused Luther of being the instigator of the rising, but also
intelligent laymen who were observing the times with a
watchful eye. The jurist Ulrich Zasius, who at one time
had been inclined to favour Luther, wrote in the year of the
revolt to his friend Amerbach : " Luther, the destroyer of
peace, the most pernicious of men, has plunged the whole
of Germany into such madness, that we now consider our
selves lucky if we are not slain on the spot." He regrets
the treaty made on May 24, 1525, at Freiburg im Breisgau,
where he lived, on its capitulation to the rebels, in which
provision was made for the " Disclosure of the Holy Evangel
of godly truth and the defence of godly righteousness."

1 Hausrath, " Luthers Leben," 2, p. 29.

212 THE APOSTASY

That the " holy evangel " and " godly truth " should only
now be disclosed at Freiburg, called forth his sarcasm. In
the treaty, he says, " There is much that is in bad taste and
ridiculous, as we might expect from peasants, for instance,
their demand that the gospel be esteemed, or, as they say,
' upheld ' ; as though this had not been done long before
by every Christian."1

In 1525 Cochlicus published a criticism on Luther's work
" Against the murderous Peasants," where he says, " Now
that the poor, unhappy peasants have lost the wager, you
go over to the princes. But in the previous booklet, when
there was still a good chance of their success, you wrote
very differently."2

Erasmus, who was closely observing Luther, says to him,
in view of the fighting which still continued spasmodically :
" We arc now reaping the fruit of your spirit. You do not
acknowledge the rebels, but they acknowledge you, and it is
well known that many who boast of the name of the evangel
have been instigators of the horrible revolt. It is true you
have attempted in your grim booklet against the peasants
to allay this suspicion, but nevertheless you cannot dispel
the general conviction that this mischief was caused by the
books you sent forth against the monks and bishops, in
favour of evangelical freedom, and against the tyrants,
more especially by those written in German."3

It would appear that Luther himself had no difficulty
whatever in forming his conscience and accepting the
responsibility. On one occasion in later years, looking back
upon the events of the unhappy rising, he declared, that he
was completely at ease concerning the advice he had given
to the authorities against the peasants, in spite of the
sanguinary results. " Preachers," he says, in his usual
drastic mode of expression, " are the biggest murderers
about, for they admonish the authorities to fulfil their duty
and to punish the wicked. I, Martin Luther, slew all the
peasants in the rebellion, for I said they should be slain ;
all their blood is upon my head. But I cast it on our Lord

1 " Epp. ad viros aetatis suae doctissimos," ed. Rieggerus, 1774,
p. 97.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 376, quoted in the introduction
to the circular letter.

3 " Hyperaspistes," " Opp.," 1, p. 1032.

THE PEASANT-WAR 213

God, Who commanded me to speak in this way." His
usual persuasion, viz. that he was God's instrument, here
again helps him. He gives us, however, a further reason :
The devil and the ungodly also slew not a few, but it is a
very different matter when the authorities punish the
wicked, for they are fulfilling a duty.1

Luther, after the appearance of these pamphlets, in various
other publications asked that leniency should be shown
towards the peasants who had been handled all too severely.
In a private letter on behalf of the son of a citizen of Eisleben,
who had been taken prisoner, we also meet with some fine
recommendations in this sense.2

He was not, however, successful in calming the general
ill-feeling aroused by his violent invective against the
" murderous peasants." His former popularity and his
power over the masses were gone. After 1525 he lost his
close touch with the people, and was obliged more and more
to seek the assistance necessary for his cause in the camp
of the Princes. For this change of front he was branded as
a " hypocrite," and " slave of Princes," by many of the
discontented.3 " The springtime of the reformation was
over," says Hausrath. " Luther no longer passed from one
triumph to another as he had during the first seven years of
his career. He himself says : ' Had not the revolted
peasants fouled the water for my fishing, things would look
very different for the Papacy ! ' The hope to overthrow
completely the Roman rule in Germany by means of a
united, overwhelmingly powerful, popular movement had
become a mere dream."4

The Catholic princes of North Germany chose that very
time to bind themselves more closely together for self-
defence against the social revolution, and to repel Lutheran-
ism. By the league of Dessau on July 19, 1525, they
followed the example set by the bishops and dukes of
South Germany, who had likewise, at Ratisbon, taken
common measures for self -protection. The soul of the

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 59, p. 284 (Tischreden). Cp. Cordatus,
" Tagebuch," p. 307, Mathesius, " Aufzeichnungen," p. 290.

2 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, 714, 717 f.

3 Cp. Enders, " Luthers Brief wechsel," 5, p. 181, n. 1.
* Hausrath, " Luthers Leben," 2, p. 62.

214 THE APOSTASY

league was Duke George of Saxony ; Joachim of Branden
burg, Albert of Mayence and Magdeburg, and Henry and
Erich of Brunswick also joined him. An account given by
Duke George, at the period when the league was established,
throws a clearer light upon the motives which inspired it.
Written under the influence of the horrors of the previous
weeks, it breathes the indignation of its author at the part
which Lutheranism had played in the misfortune, and
looks around for some means by which the " root of the
rebellion, the damned Lutheran sect, may be extirpated ;
the revolt inspired by the Lutheran evangel had led to the
diminution of the honour and service of God, and had been
undertaken with a view to damaging the clergy, prelates
and the lower orders of the aristocracy, nor could it 'well be
completely quelled except by the rooting out of these same
Lutherans."1 Duke George at that time entertained hopes
— not justified by events — of being able, by appealing to
the experiences of the Peasant-War, to alienate from Luther,
Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and Johann, Elector of Saxony,
who had just commenced his reign.

The above-mentioned Princes, who were Catholic in their
views, met together in Leipzig at Christmas, 1525, in order
— as representatives of the Catholic faith, the principles of
which were being endangered in Germany — to induce the
Emperor to provide some remedy in accordance with the
provisions of the Diet of Worms.

The prolonged absence of the Emperor Charles from
Germany, due to his concern in European politics, was one
of the principal causes of the growing disturbances. To
recall him to Germany and invite him to interfere was the
object of a measure taken by certain ecclesiastics at a
meeting held at Mayence on November 14, 1525. Delegates
from the twelve provinces of Mayence assembled at the
instance of the Chapter of Spires. It was a remarkable fact
that the bishops themselves, who by the indifference they
displayed had, as a body, roused the dissatisfaction of
zealous Churchmen, did not attend, but only members of
the Chapters. They determined to insist upon their bishops
making a stand against the revolutionary Lutheran preach-

1 Ed. W. Friedensburg, " Zur Vorgesch. des Gotha-Torgauischen
Bundnisses der Evangelischen," 1884. Cp. Kawerau in " Theolog.
Literaturztng.," 1884, p. 502.

THE PEASANT-WAR 2l5

ing, to send a deputation to the Pope and the Emperor with
an account of the general mischief which had befallen
Germany by reason of the apostasy, and finally to urge the
Emperor to return to Germany, and meanwhile to name
executors for carrying out the orders he might give for the
preservation of religion according to law. George of Saxony,
Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and the Bavarian Dukes
were to be proposed to the Emperor as such executors.
The deputation from the Chapters was, however, never sent,
owing apparently to the lack of interest displayed by those
Chapters which assembled, and by those which were invited
but did not send the necessary funds. The zealous Dean of
Mayence Cathedral, Lorenz Truchsess von Pommersfelden,
found himself practically left single-handed.1

Upon learning what resolutions had been passed, Luther
wrote, in March, 1526, a tract of frightful violence against
the "Mayence Proposal"; it was, however, suppressed by
the Electoral Court of Saxony, owing to the intervention
of Duke George.2 The Emperor, notwithstanding his
promise to arrive speedily, did not reach Germany until
1530, after having achieved great success abroad. He came
with the firm intention to oppose the religious revolution
with the utmost vigour, and to place the Imperial authority
on a firmer footing.

Meanwhile, the Courts of Saxony and Hesse, whose
sympathies were writh the Lutheran party, had, however,
at Gotha entered into a defensive alliance which was finally
concluded at Torgau on May 2, 1526. The Emperor's
threats, which had become known, did their part in bringing
this about ; and a further result of the Emperor's letters
against the " wicked Lutheran cause and errors " was, that
the Dukes of Brunswick-Luneburg, Philip of Brunswick-
Grubenhagen, Henry of Mecklenburg, Wolfgang of Anhalt
and Albert of Mansfeld also joined the league.

Luther was greatly rejoiced at this proof of the favour of
the Princes, but, as yet, he refused to commit himself on the
question as to whether force might be used against the
Emperor and the Empire. (See vol. iii., xv. 3.)

1 Cp. Fr. Herrmann, " Evangelische Regungen zu Mainz in den
ersten Jahren der Reformation," in " Schriften fur Reformations-
gesch.," No. 100, 1910, pp. 275-304.

2 Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 7 f. For the tract, so far as it is
known, see " Werke," Weim. ed., 19, p. 252 ff. ; Erl. ed. 65, p. 22 ff.

216 THE APOSTASY

As a consequence of the Peasant- War the Princes grew
in power, while the people lost many rights and liberties
which they had previously enjoyed.

" The practical outcome of the great popular movement
was deplorable," writes F. G. Ward. " The condition of
the common people became even worse than before, and the
national feeling which had begun to arise again degenerated
into particularism in the vast number of small, independent
States."1 Just as the common people ascribed their mis
fortunes to Luther, who, at the critical moment, had
deserted the cause of the peasants, so likewise many of the
nobility were angry with him because of the discontent
which his teaching fostered. The confiscation of Church
property by the nobility roused the hatred of many of the
powerful against Luther, whose aim it was to favour the
rapacity only of such as were favourable to his cause.

When, in February, 1530, Luther's father lay on his
death-bed, the fear of his enemies prevented the son under
taking the journey through the flat country to sec him. He
accordingly wrote to him, explaining why he was unable
to leave Wittenberg : " My good friends have dissuaded
me from it, and I myself am forced to believe that I may
not tempt God by venturing into this peril, for you know
the kind of favour I may expect from lord or peasant."2

This dislike on the part of both the peasants and the
lords, which he frequently admits, has been taken as a
proof that he did his duty towards both in an impartial
manner. It would, however, be more correct to say, that
he failed in his duty towards both parties, first to the lords
and then to the peasants, and that on both occasions his
mistake was closely bound up with his public position, i.e.
with his preaching of the new faith. He advocated the
cause of the peasants with the intention of thereby intro
ducing the evangel amongst the people, while he supported
the lords in order to counteract the pernicious results of the
socio-religious movement which resulted, and to exonerate
the evangel from the charge of preaching revolt. There is,
as a matter of fact, no ground for the charge of " duplicity "

1 Frank G. Ward, " Darstellung der Ansichten Luthers vom Staat
und seinen wirtschaftlichen Aufgaben," 1898, p. 31.

2 To Hans Luther, February 15, 1530, " Werke," Erl. ed., 54,
p. 130 (" Brief wechsel," 7, p. 230).

THE PEASANT-WAR 217

brought against him by his opponents ; the changing
circumstances determined his varying action, and so little
did he disguise his thoughts, that on both occasions his
strong language increased the evil.1

The unfavourable feeling which prevailed towards the
peasants at once influenced his views concerning the duty
of the authorities. That the authorities should meet every
transgression of the law on the part of the people by severe
measures, appears to him more and more as one of their
principal obligations.

In 1526, at the instance of a stranger, he caused one of his
sermons to be printed, in which he says to the people :
" Because God has given a law and knows that no one
keeps it, He has also appointed lictors, drivers and over
seers, for Scripture speaks thus of the authorities in a
parable ; like the donkey-drivers who have to lie on the
neck of their beasts and whip them to make them go. In
the same way the authorities must drive, beat and slay the
people, Messrs. Omnes, hang, burn, behead and break them
on the wheel, that they may be kept in awe." " As the
swine and wild beasts have to be driven and restrained by
force," so the authorities must insist upon the keeping of
the laws.2 So far docs he go as to declare that the best
thing that could come about would be the revival of serfdom
and slavery.3

At a later date he frequently depicted the peasants, quite
generally, as rascals, and poured forth bitter words of anger
against them. " A peasant is a hog," he says in 1532, " for
when a hog is slaughtered it is dead, and in the same way
the peasant docs not think about the next life, for otherwise
he would behave very differently."4 The following date
also from the same period : " The peasant remains a boor,
do what you will " ; they have, so he says, their mouth,

1 Janssen-Pastor, " Gesch. des deutschen Volkes," 218, p. 526 n.
" Luther's conduct in the Peasant War was not ambiguous, but in
both his writings merely violent as usual ; in the first, against the
nobles, more especially the higher clergy ; in the second, against the
peasants."

2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 152, p. 276.

3 Ibid., 33, p. 390. In the " Exhortation to Peace Luther had
represented to the peasants that their demand for the abrogation of
serfdom was " rapacious," " and directly contrary to the gospel." Cp.
vol. v., xxxv. 5.

4 Schlaginhaufen, " Aufzeichnungen," p. 118.

218 THE APOSTASY

nose, eyes and everything else in the wrong place.1 " I
believe that the devil does not mind the peasants " ; he
" despises them as he does leaden pennies " ; he thinks " he
can easily manage to secure them for himself, as they will
assuredly be claimed by no one."2 " A peasant who is a
Christian is like a wooden poker."3 To a candidate for
marriage he wrote : " My Katey sends you this friendly
warning, to beware of marrying a country lass, for they are
rude and proud, cannot get on well with their husbands and
know neither how to cook nor to brew."4

" The peasants as well as the nobles throughout the
country," he complains in 1533, in a letter to Spalatin,
" have entered into a conspiracy against the evangel, though
they make use of the liberty of the gospel in the most
outrageous manner. It is not surprising that the Papists
persecute us. God will be our Judge in this matter ! " " Oh,
the awful ingratitude of our age. We can only hope and
pray for the speedy coming of our Lord and Saviour [the
Last Day]."5

The psychological picture presented by Luther during the
whole of the year 1525 reveals more plainly than at any
other time his state of morbid excitement. The nervous
tension which had been increasing in him ever since 1517,
together with his mental anxiety and the spirit of defiance,
reached their culminating point in the year of his marriage,
a year filled with the most acute struggles.

" His enemies called the temper of the strong man
demoniacal," says a Protestant historian of the Peasant-
War, " and, as a matter of fact," he adds, " the Luther we
meet with in the writings of the years 1517-1525 bears but
little resemblance to the earnest, but cheerful and kindly
husband and father whom Protestants are wont to picture
as their reformer."6

This remark applies with special force to the year 1525
when he actually became a husband, though more stress

1 Schlaginhaufen, " Aufzeichnungen," p. 125. Cp. Cordatus,
" Tagebuch," 216. 2 Ibid., p. 127. Cordatus, ibid., p. 217.

3 Ibid., p. 131. Cordatus, p. 221.

4 " Brief e," ed. De Wette, undated Fragment.

8 On August 25, 1533, " Briefwechsel," 9, p. 333.

6 P. Schreckenbach, " Luther und der Bauernkrieg," 1895, p. 45.

THE PEASANT- WAR 219

should be laid upon the mental strain he was undergoing.
Luther undoubtedly acted at that time, not only in the
matter of the Peasant-War, but also in many other complex
questions, under the influence of an overwrought temper.
It was a period of combined internal and external conflict,
which, so to speak, raised his troubled spirit above the
normal conditions of existence. With the fanatics he had
to struggle for the very existence of his evangel ; the
contradictions and dissensions within the new fold also
caused him constant anxiety. His controversy with the
learned Erasmus on the subject of Free-Will angered him
beyond measure, for Erasmus, as Luther says, " held the
knife to his throat "* by his book in defence of the freedom
of the human will. Luther was also at war with the " wise
acres " who disapproved of his marriage, and had to vindicate
his action also to himself. In feverish delirium he fancies
he sees the jaws of death gaping for him, and feels that the
devil in all his strength has been let loose to seize upon his
person, as the one through whom alone, as he says, truth
and salvation are to be proclaimed to the world. He
marries, and then exclaims with fear : " Perhaps as soon as
I am dead my teaching will be overthrown ; then my
example may be a source of encouragement to the weak."2
" I see the rabble as well as the nobles raging against me,"
but this comfort remains to me, " however hostile they may
be to me on account of my marriage or other matters, yet
their hostility is only a sign that I am in the right " ; " were
the world not scandalised at me, then I should indeed fear
that what we do was not from God."3

The idea of his own divine mission, raising him far above
the reach of his enemies, finds expression to quite a marked
degree in the letters he wrote to his friends at that time.
In these he is certainly not speaking of mere fancies, but of
views which he was earnestly desirous of inculcating.

" God has so often trodden Satan under my feet, He has
cast down the lion and the dragon beneath me, He will not
allow the basilisk to harm me ! " " Christ began without
our counsel, and He will assuredly bring His work to its

1 " De servo arbitrio," " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 776. " Opp.
Lat. var.," 7, p. 367 : " ipsum iugulum petisti"

2 To Michael Stiefel, September 29, 1525, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 248 f.
8 Ibid., p. 248 : " metuens, ne non esset divinum, quod gerimus."

220 THE APOSTASY

completion even contrary to what we would advise. . . .
God works above, and against, and under, and beyond all
that we can conceive." " It is, however, a grief to me now
that these blasphemous enemies [certain of the preachers]
should have been raised to the ministry and the knowledge
of the [Divine] Word through us. May God convert them
and instruct them, or else provide for their removal. Amen."
He writes thus to his friend Nicholas Amsdorf, the later
" bishop," who, perhaps of all his friends, was the one most
likely to have a real comprehension for language of this
stamp.1

In utter contrast to the opinion Luther here expressed
of himself stands the description sketched by Hieronymus
Emser of his person and his work.

One of Luther's humanistic followers, Euricius Cordus,
had published in 1525, in Latin verse, the so-called " Anti-
luthcromastix " (scourge of the antilutherans), in which he
heaped scorn upon those literary men who defended the
Church against Luther. Emser himself was attacked in
the work for his championship of the older Church. Emser,
however, replied in a work, also couched in Latin hexa
meters and entitled " Justification of the Catholics in reply
to the invective of the physician Euricius Cordus, and his
Antilutheromastix."2 Under the influence of the strong
impression made upon him by Luther's marriage and the
Peasant-War he has therein inserted some verses expressing
his indignation against Luther ; from these we quote here
some extracts. The language reflects plainly Luther's
personality as it appeared in the eyes of Emser and many
of the Catholic controversialists of that day, and thus serves
to mirror the development and progress of the intellectual
struggle.3

" God commanded vows to be kept, but Luther tears
them to pieces. Christ commended those who renounced matri
mony, but Luther praises those who wantonly violate chastity.
Purity is pleasing in the sight of heaven, but to this height Luther
cannot raise himself. Luther at one time renounced matrimony
by a sacred promise made in the presence of God, but now he

May 30, 1525, " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 182.

2 In " Eurici Cordi Medici antilutheromastigos calumnias expur-
gatio pro catholicis," 1526. Cp. G. Kawerau, " Hieron. Emser,"
1898, p. 83 f. For Eraser's work I made use of the very rare copy
in the University library at Munich. 3 Verse 53 ff.

EMSER'S "EXPURGATIO" 221

plunges into it because he, the monk, has been led astray by his
passion for a nun. Whereas our Saviour lived unmarried, he,
the unhappy and faithless man, desires to take a wife. Christ
gave an example of humility, this man is proud and even rises in
impudent rebellion against the authorities. He launches out
into torrents of abuse and vituperation (" Maledictorum plaus-
tris iniuriufs "). He heaps up mountains of insults, he burns
the sacred laws and mocks at God and man in the same way as
did the old tyrants of Sicily. Christ is the friend of peace, but
this fellow calls to arms. He invites the raging mob to wash
their hands in the blood of the clergy. He provokes and incites
the masses under the screen of a false freedom so that they
audaciously refuse to pay tithes, dues and taxes, and ruthlessly
conspire against the life of the lords." In Emser's opinion it
was Luther's word and writings which caused the conflagration.
" He persuaded the people to look on him as a prophet, and to
set his foolish fancies on a level with the oracles of heaven. The
German people, as though stupefied with drink, rise and follow
him in a terrible tumult, turning their blood-stained weapons
against themselves."

The poet then directs the attention of the reader to the crowds
of people massacred and the strongholds consumed by fire.
" The priest, robbed of his means of livelihood and without a
church, wanders to and fro ; in the families grief and dissension
reign ; -the nun who has forfeited her honour and her chastity,
weeps. This, Luther, is the result of your fine writings. Who
ever says that you took them from the Word of Christ and that
the clear light of the gospel shines through them, must indeed
have been struck with blindness. None is more fickle than
Luther ; nowhere does he remain true to himself ; first he
commits his cause to the appointed judge, then he refuses to
abide by the decision or to acknowledge any jurisdiction on
earth. At one time he recognises all the seven Sacraments, at
another only three, and no doubt he will soon admit none at
all."

This man, Emser continues, Cordus presumes to compare with
Moses, the sublime, divinely appointed leader of the Israelites !
This audacious comparison he is at pains to disprove by setting
the qualities of the one side by side with those of the other. He
says for instance : Moses sanctified the people, " but your
Luther gives the reins to sinful lusts. The people, after casting
off all the wholesome restrictions of the ancient laws of morality,
are bereft of all discipline, of all fear either of God or the authori
ties ; virtue disappears, law and justice totter. . . . The heart
of the German race has been hardened to stone ; sunk in the mire,
and given over to their passions, they despise all the gifts they
have received of God. The children suck in the errors of their
parents with their mothers' milk and follow their example,
learn to blaspheme, are proud and thankless and thus become
the ruin of their country. To this has your unhappy Moses
brought them." And now Luther was seeking to make further con-

222 THE APOSTASY

quests by means of a flood of popular writings, embellished with
pictures, verses and songs so as to penetrate more easily into
the minds of the unwary ; with this aim in view he did not even
spare the Bible, circulating false translations and explaining it
by venomous glosses. " How many thousand souls have not his
writings already brought to eternal perdition ! They fancied
that in them they found the truth, and were miserably deceived
by such doctrines." What confusion, he says, will not be occa
sioned in the future among those who hang upon his words, by
his translation of the Bible.

" Go now, Cordus, and compare this man with Moses, the liar
with the truth-loving saint, the wild stormer with the meek and
patient leader of the people. Luther, desirous of leading us out
of the Roman bondage, casts us into an unhappy spiritual
bondage ; he drags us from light into darkness, from heaven
down to hell."

What is pleasing in the long poem, apart from the smooth
Latin verse, is the generous recognition which Emser
bestows on the numerous other defenders of the Church,
who, like himself, as he says, have withstood Luther vigor
ously and successfully with their pen. Among these he
singles out for special mention Eck, Faber, Cochlacus,
Dietenberger and others. His frank admission that much
in the Church stood in need of improvement and that a real
Catholic reformer would be welcome to all, is also worthy
of notice. He shares the desire, which at that time was
making itself so strongly felt in Catholic circles, that the
Emperor, as the highest temporal authority, should now
lend his assistance to the Church and give the impetus
necessary towards the accomplishment of the longed-for
renewal. " But though we do not defend the old abuses, yet
\ve condemn Luther's foolish new doctrines. The rule of
the earlier ages of the Church ought to shine in front of us
to guide our life as well as to determine dogma. We must
cling to the narrow way of the gospel and to the apostolic
precepts, the decrees of the Fathers and the written and
unwritten tradition as taught by the Holy Ghost who
guides the Church. For the success of the reform it is
certainly not necessary to overthrow the existing human
and divine order of things, or to fill the weary world with
noisy strife. The Emperor has it in his hands, let him
only follow the example of so many of his predecessors who
helped the Church to renewr her youth, particularly Charles
the Great and his pious son Lewis."

ON FREE-WILL 223

Luther, meanwhile, was straining every nerve in the
cause of the intellectual revolution of which the plan floated
in his mind. It seemed as though he were incapable of
fatigue.

His numerous labours, his constant cares and the exces
sive mental strain are apparent from his letters. He writes
of a supposed portent in the world of nature. " The omen
fills me with fear, it can presage nothing but evil." " I am
altogether immersed in Erasmus," he says, " I shall take
care not to let anything slip, for not a single word of his is
true : " he writes thus to Spalatin.1 " Every day I am
overwhelmed with complaints from our parishes," he
laments to the pastor of Zwickau : " Satan is busy in our
midst. The people absolutely refuse to pay anything
towards the support of the preachers." He intends, he says,
to persuade the Elector to organise a visitation of all the
churches throughout the land, he is also anxious to intro
duce uniformity in matters of ritual ; all this involves him
in a hundred difficulties.2 Disagreements with the Zwing-
lians of Strasburg cause some trouble. At the same time
the negotiations with the Teutonic Order call for his whole
care and attention, the apostasy and marriage of Albert, the
Grand Master, greatly raising his hopes.

It was in this frame of mind, and in the midst of all this
manifold business, that Luther threw himself into the
controversy on man's free-will. It was his object to estab
lish a literary foundation for his new doctrines as a whole
by vindicating a pet doctrine on account of which he had
been so mercilessly attacked.3

3. The Religion of the Enslaved Will. The Controversy
between Luther and Erasmus (1524-1525)

That the will is free is one of the most indisputable facts
of our inner consciousness. Where there is reason there
must needs be a corresponding freedom, i.e. freedom from
interior necessity.

Freedom is the basis of all worship of God, and if external
compulsion is rightly excluded from the idea of religion,

1 September 28, 1525, " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 246.

2 On September 27, 1525, ibid., p. 245.

3 Cp. letter of May 26, 1525, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 304 (" Brief-
wechsel," 5, p. 179).

224 THE APOSTASY

surely still more opposed to it is the assumption that the
will lacks freedom when it seeks and serves God. The true
dignity of the soul's worship of God consists in the voluntary
payment of homage to the highest of all beings in the
natural as well as the supernatural order. " God has made
you without your co-operation," says Augustine, " but He-
will not save you without it."1 God's greatness and omnipo
tence are enhanced by His creation of beings gifted with the
power of self-determination, who can will or not, who are
free to choose this or that and arc in a position to embrace
what is good instead of what is evil.

The consensus of the human race as a whole in the belief in
free-will finds its expression in the acknowledgment of the sense
of duty. Virtue and vice, command and prohibition are written
on every page of history since the world began. If however
there is such a thing as a moral order, then free-will must exist.
The misuse of the latter is followed, owing to the spontaneous
protest on the part of nature, by a feeling of guilt and remorse,
whence Augustine, the champion of grace and free-will, could
say : " The feeling of remorse is a witness both to the fact that
the individual who feels it has acted wrongly and that he might
have acted aright."2

The doctrine of the Church before Luther's time was, that
free-will had not been destroyed by original sin, and that, in one
who acts aright, it is not interfered with by God's grace. The
fall of our first parents did not obliterate but merely weakened and
warped the freedom of moral choice by giving rise to concupis
cence and the movements of passion. Among the many proofs
of this appealed to in Holy Scripture were the words spoken by
God to Cain : " Why art thou angry ? ... If thou do well,
shalt thou not receive ? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be
present at the door ? but the lust thereof shall be under thee,
and thou shalt have dominion over it."3 It was well known
that Scripture always credited even the fallen will with power
over the lower impulses, as well as with the choice between good
and evil, life and death, the service of God and the service of
idols.

Seeing that Luther, in teaching the contrary, appealed to the
power of divine grace which ostensibly does all, obliterating
every free deed, it is worth our while to point out the scriptural
proofs by which the Church vindicated man's liberty even under
the action of grace.

Ecclesiastical writers, even in the days immediately before
Luther's time, were fond of laying stress on the words of the

1 " Qui te fecit sine te, non iustificat te sine te" " Serrn.," 160, n. 13.

2 " De duabus animabus," 14, n. 22.

3 Genesis iv. 6 f. According to the Vulgate.

ON FREE-WILL 225

Apostle of the Gentiles : "We exhort you that you receive not
the grace of God m vain " ; or, again, on that other passage
where he says of himself : " His grace in me was not void, but I
laboured more than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God in
me. It was because he was conscious of freedom and of the
power of abusing grace that the Apostle exhorted the Philippians
as follows : ' Work out your salvation with fear and trembling " »
Catholic writers likewise pointed out that the same inspired
teaching concerning the liberty of choice in those called to the
state of grace was also to be found in the Old Testament : " Choose
therefore life that thou mayst love the Lord thy God," an ex
hortation prefaced by the most solemn assurance : ' " I call
heaven and earth to witness this day, that I have set before you
life and death, blessing and cursing."2

True Catholic mysticism also laid great stress on free-will,
and if some mystical writers, led astray by semi-pantheistic or
quietistic ideas, erred from the right path, at any rate their
views were never sanctioned by the Church. Some mystics also
were not rightly understood and the denial of free-will was
attributed to them, whereas all there is to censure in them is
their vague mode of expression. This is the case with the

Theologia Deutsch," which Luther esteemed so highly but did
not rightly comprehend. What the Frankfurt knight of the
Teutonic Order says in this work, viz. : " When a man is in the
state of grace and agreeable to God, he wills and yet it is not he
who wills, but God, and there the will is not its own," may sound
equivocal, though it really is perfectly harmless, for the words
which follow show that he does not deny man's will, and that
when lie says that God Himself wills in man he is merely em
phasising the harmony between the human and the Divine will :
" And there nothing else is willed but what God wills, for there
God wills and not man, the will being united to the Eternal
Will."3 The will which thus acts in union with the Eternal Will
is the free-will of man on earth.

If Luther, instead of endeavouring to find support for his
opinions on such misunderstood passages, had examined with an
open mind the teaching of the Church as expressed by Augustine,
the greatest teacher on grace, he would have found, that Augustine
holds fast to the liberty of the will notwithstanding that in his
defence of grace he had to lay greater stress on the latter than on
free-will. This Doctor of the Church brilliantly refutes the
assertion of the Pelagians, that the Catholic doctrine did not
allow to free-will its full rights. " We also, teach freedom of
choice (' liberum in liominibus esse arbitrium ')," he says, for
instance. " On this point at least there is no difference between us
and you. It is not on account of this doctrine that you are
Pelagians, but because you exclude from free-will the co-operation
of grace in the performance of good works."4

1 2 Corinthians vi. 1 ; 1 Corinthians xv. 10 ; Philippians ii. 12.

2 Deuteronomy xxx. 19. 3 Ed. F. Pfeiffer2, 1855, p. 208.
4 " De nuptiis et concup.," 2, c. 8.

II. — Q

226 THE APOSTASY

The Catholic doctrine represented all good-doing on man's
part — by which he rendered himself pleasing to God, attained to
the state of justification and the right to an eternal reward — as an
act organically one, effected equally by God's Grace and by man's
free co-operation. Even in the preparation for the state of grace
both elements were held to be essential, actual grace, and human
effort supported and carried on by such grace. Concerning such
preparation, theology taught that man thereby made himself in
some way worthy of justification and of heaven, that he merited
both, though not indeed in the strict sense, rather that, so to
speak, he rendered himself deserving of justification as an un
merited reward, bestowed through the bountiful goodness of
God (i.e. not " de condigno" but " de congruo"}. Further ex
amination of the scholastic teaching on this point would here be
out of place, nor can we discuss the principle to which the Church
ever adhered so firmly, viz. that God gives His grace to all
without exception, because He wills to make all without exception
eternally happy, according to the assurance of Holy Scripture :
" God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of
the truth." But as regards man's free-will or want of free-will
under the action of grace, which is the background of the present
phase of Luther's history, according to the Church and her
Doctors man's freedom of choice, far from being deranged by
the action of God's grace, is, on the contrary, thereby assisted to
arrive at a wholesome and unfettered decision. " Free-will,"
says Augustine, in his striking and thoughtful way, "is not
destroyed because it is assisted by grace ; it is assisted because
it has not been destroyed."1

The position which Luther had assumed in the Com
mentary on Romans in 1515-1516 concerning the doctrine
of human free-will has already been discussed in detail
(vol. i., p. 202 ff.). It is of the utmost importance to follow
up his other statements on free-will dating from that period,
and the subsequent advance in his views during his public
struggle till the publication of the decisive book " De servo
arbitrio " in 1525. It not only affords a deep, psychological
and theological insight into his train of thought, but also
shows how his denial of free-will was the central point of his
whole teaching. At the same time we shall notice certain
emphatic statements which he makes, but which do not
usually occupy a due place in descriptions of his theology

1 " Epp.," 157, c. 2. It is notorious that in his controversial
writings against the Pelagians, Augustine, in his later years, came to
insist more and more upon grace, yet he never denied free-will nor
its consequences, viz. merit and guilt. Some of Luther's misrepresenta
tions^ the statements of this Father of the Church will be given
later."1

ON FREE-WILL 227

and which accordingly might easily be regarded by our
readers as not his at all, were they not attested conscienti
ously and in detail by Luther's own writings. We refer to
such assertions as the following : " Everything happens of
necessity "; " Man, when he does what is evil, is not master
of himself " ; " Man does evil because God ceases to work in
him " ; " By virtue of His nature God's ineluctable concursus
determines everything, even the most trivial," hence "in
evitable necessity " compels us in " all that we do and
everything that happens," " God alone moves and impels
all that He has made " (" movet agit, rapit "), nay, " He decrees
all things in advance by His infallible will," including

the inevitable damnation of those who are damned. We

shall hear these views expounded below by Luther himself
as the core and kernel of his teaching (" summa causce ") ;
with spirit and energy he advocates them through some
hundred pages in one of his principal works, against the
greatest of the Humanists, who had dared to attack him ;
to question his fundamental dogma was, says Luther, to
" place the knife at his throat."

The Development of Luther's Opposition to Free-Will
from 1516 to 1524

What Luther advanced in his Commentary on Romans,
against man's power of choice for what is good, has been
summed up as follows by Johann Ficker, the editor of the
Commentary : Luther allowed nothing to deter him from
following up his new theories, nor did he even shrink from
setting up the proposition of " the absolute impossibility
of any good in the natural sphere," or from " stating in
the strongest terms of determinism the exclusive power
and action of the salutary and unconditional Divine Will."1

In his sermon on the Feast of St. Stephen, in 1515, Luther
had spoken of the inward voice in man (" synteresis "),
which urges him towards what is good and to true happiness,
thereby implying the admission of free-will in man. This,
he says, is capable of accepting or refusing God's grace,
though he is careful to add that the remnant of vital
force represented by the synteresis does not indicate a

1 J. Ficker, in the Preface, p. Ixxv, referring to " Schol. Rom "
38, 42, 71, 90, 91, 93, 101 ; cp. 171, 179, 188, 218.

228 THE APOSTASY

condition of health nor afford any cause for boasting in
God's sight, the whole state of man being one of corruption ;
the synteresis, in fact, constitutes a danger to us because it
leads us to trust in our own powers (" voluntas, sapientia "),
so that we are readily induced to regard our restoration by
grace as unnecessary. Such confidence in his own powers
leads man to place himself on the side of those who crucified
Christ, for such a one has a wrong opinion of righteousness
and looks on Christ as superfluous, who is the source of
righteousness. " Thus it comes about," he cries, " that
grace is most strongly opposed by those who boast most of
it " j a paradoxical saying which often occurs in Luther's
early sermons and which plainly owes its origin to his
quarrel with the " Little Saints."1

Not here alone, but frequently in the sermons of those
days, we hear Luther warning the people against misusing
the synteresis. His opposition to man's natural powers
leads him at times so far that he represents the synteresis
merely as a vague and practically worthless faculty. It
is true he declares that he simply wishes to obviate an
irreligious over-esteem of free-will, but he really goes
further, now admitting, now rejecting it ; his explanations
let us see that " here there is an unsolved contradiction in
his theology. He fails to explain how the remnant of vital
force still in us is to be made use of by Divine grace so as
to produce health," and how " it can be of any importance
or worth for the attainment of salvation in the domain of
reason and will." " Is there, then, no right use for the
synteresis? Luther not only tells us nothing of this, but
the natural consequence of much that he says is an answer
to the question in the negative, although it should un
doubtedly have been answered in the affirmative."2

If we cast a glance at the other sermons which coincide in
point of time with his Commentary on Romans, we shall
find in certain remarks on the regeneration of man a fore
taste of his later teaching regarding free-will. He says, for
instance, of the attainment of the state of grace, that here
regeneration takes place not only " without our seeking,
praying, knocking, simply by the mercy of God," but also

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 30 ff. " Opp. Lat. var.," 1, p. 55 f.

2 A. Taube, " Luthers Lehre liber die Freiheit ... bis zum
Jahre 1525," Gottingen, 1901, p. 10 f.

ON FREE-WILL 229

that it resembles natural generation, where the child docs
nothing (" ipso nihil agente ") ; no man can be born for
heaven by his own operation and merits (" sua opera suoque
merito "). He contrasts those who are generated of God
' in the spirit " with those who live after the flesh, and who
of ten " make a great show of spirituality " : they are, he
says, " carnal-spiritual " and, " with their horrid, hypocritical
spirituality, are doomed to destruction."1

According to these sermons it is plain that God is the only
worker in the man who is thus born of God. In him free
will for doing what is good does not come into account, for
the good works of the righteous man arc God's works, and
his virtues and excellence are really God's. " He works
all in all, all is His, He, the One Almighty Being, does all
things," so we read in Luther's sermon on August 15, 1516,
the Feast of the Assumption, i.e. at a time when by his
study of the Epistle to the Romans he had been confirmed
in his bias against man's natural powers.2

The Wittenberg Disputation in 1516, " On man's powers and
will without grace," immediately followed his lectures on the
Epistle to the Romans ; here we find it stated in plain words,
that " man's will without grace is not free, but captive, though
not unwillingly."3 To complete what has already been said
(vol. i., p. 310 ff.) we may add that the proof of this is sought in
that the will sins in everything, and that, according to Scripture,
" Whoever sins is the slave of sin." We learn also from the
Bible, we read, that we are then truly free when the Son (of
God) makes us free. The natural man without grace is an evil
tree, as such he can only desire and do what is evil. This degra
dation of the human will was intended to form the basis for a
new appreciation of the grace and merits of Christ.

It is probable that the three fragments, " On the unfreedom
of the human will," etc., which are in agreement with this last
Disputation, date from the late autumn of 1516. Here "the
captivity and slavery of the will " (" volunlas necessario serva et
captiva ") with regard to the doing of what is good, i.e. " to
merit and demerit," is again emphasised. Freedom in respect
of " those other, lower matters which come under the dominion

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 10 ff. " Opp. Lat. var.," 1, p. 29 f.

2 Ibid., p. 78 = p. 177. Cp. F. Kattenbusch, " Luthers Lehre vom
unfreien Willen," Gottingen, 1875, p. 51 (the 2nd edition is a mere
reprint).

3 Cp. for this and for the other theses Luther's works mentioned
in volume i., p. 310 ff., and also "Die altesten Disputationen," etc.,
ed. Stange, for instance, p. 5 : " Voluntas hominis sine gratia non est
libera, sed servit, licet non inwta."

230 THE APOSTASY

of the will " is indeed conceded.1 But as the modern Protestant
editor of the texts in question remarks, " even this freedom is
merely apparent,"2 for Luther says briefly but meaningly : " I
do not deny that the will is free, or rather seems to itself to be
free (' imo videatur sibi libera ')3 by the freedom of contrariety
and of contradiction with regard to its lower objects." Here we
already have a clear indication of the determinism which Luther
was to advocate at a later date, according to which God's Omni
potence works all things in man, even indifferent matters.4 In
these fragments it is, however, chiefly a question of moral actions.
Where it is a question of acts having some moral value Luther's
answer is already quite definite : " The will when confronted
with temptation cannot without grace avoid falling ; by its own
powers it is able to will only what is evil."5

A year later the " Disputation against the theology of the
Schoolmen " of September 4, 1517, which has been already
described generally (vol. i., p. 312), laid the axe at the root of
free-will in respect of what is good ; its tenor is even more
decided, and it greatly exaggerates the corruption of man by
original sin : " It is false that the will is free to choose between
a thing and its contrary [in the moral order] ; without grace the
human will must of necessity do what is opposed to the will of
God." Hence nature "must be put to death absolutely."6

Concerning the Heidelberg Disputation in April, 1518, we need
only recall the fact, that Luther caused the thesis to be defended,
that, after the Fall, free-will is but a name, and that when man
does the best he can, he simply commits a mortal sin. The
doctrine of the sinfulness of the works performed by the natural
man, which he had held even previously, he now supplements by
an addition, in the nature of a challenge : " Liberum arbitrium
post peccatum res est de solo titulo."1

In the Disputation with Eck at Leipzig in the following
year, owing to his views on the subject not yet being
generally known, they were not directly discussed.

When, however, after its termination, Luther, in August,

1 Stange, ibid., p. 15.

2 Stange, ibid., p. 16, n. 1, referring to his work, " Die reforma-
torische Lehre von der Freiheit des Handelns," in " Neue kirchl.
Zeitschr.," 3, 1903, p. 214 ff.

3 Cp. Kattenbusch, " Luthers Lehre vom unfreien Willen," p. 48 f.
* On Luther's Determinism, see below. For the deterministic

passages in the work, " De servo arbitrio," 1525, cf. Taube, " Luthers
Lehre xiber die Freiheit," p. 21.

5 Latin text in Stange, ibid., p. 18. Cp. Kattenbusch. ibid., p. 41 ff.,
for what Luther said in 1516.

6 See Stange, ibid., p. 35 ff.

7 Thesis 13, in Stange, ibid., p. 53. " Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 354 ;
" Opp. Lat. var.," 1, p. 388. Cp. Thesis 14 : " Liberum arbitrium post
peccatum potest in bonum potentia subiectiva, in malum vero activa
semper." On the Heidelberg Disputation, see volume i, p. 315 ff.

ON FREE-WILL 231

1519, published the Latin " Resolutions " on the Leipzig
Disputation, he proclaimed himself to the world as a most
determined opponent of free-will, not even confining him
self to attacking the power for doing what is good.

" Free-will," he says here, " is purely passive in every
one of its acts (' in omni actu suo ') which can come under
the term of will. ... A good act comes wholly and entirely
(' totus et totaliter ') from God, because the whole activity of
the will consists in the Divine action which extends to the
members and powers of both body and soul, no other
activity existing."1 In another passage of the "Resolu
tions " he says : "At whatever hour of our life we may find
ourselves we are the slaves either of concupiscence or of
charity, for both govern free-will (' utraque enim dominabitur
liber o arbitrio 5)."2 Julius Kostlin is right when he sees in
such words the complete renunciation of free-will. " Of
man's free-will in the ordinary sense of the term, or of any
independent choice for good or for evil which should include
the possibility of a different decision, there is, according to
Luther, no question." Kostlin points out that Luther does
not here go into the question as to whether the sinfulness
and corruption of the lost are to be attributed to God, Who
did not cause His saving grace to be sufficiently efficacious
in them.3 Luther certainly contrived to avoid this danger
ous objection, not only here, but also for long after when
speaking on the subject of the will.

In the " Resolutions " Luther had merely represented his
opposition to free-will as the consequence of his doctrine of
the corruption of human nature due to original sin, but
subsequent to the appearance of the Bull of Excommunica
tion he goes further and declares the denial of the " liberum
arbitrium " to be nothing less than the fundamental article
of his teaching (" articulus omnium optimus et rerum
nostrarum summa ").4 Among the propositions condemned
by the Papal Bull was Luther's thesis directed against free
will at the Heidelberg Disputation. It was given in Luther's
own words, viz. that free-will is a mere empty name, etc.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 2, p. 421 ; " Opp. Lat var.," 3, p. 272.

2 Ibid., p. 424 = p. 276.

3 Jul. Kostlin, "Luthers Theologie," I2, Stuttgart, 1901, p. 218.

4 In the " Assertio omnium articulorum," " Werke," Weim. ed., 7,
p. 148 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 234. Cp. ibid., p. 146 = p. 231 :
" Patimur omnes et omnia : cessat liberum arbitrium erga Deum."

232 THE APOSTASY

In defence of the condemned propositions Luther wrote, in
1520, the " Assertio omnium articulorum," which was
published in 1521. To prove his denial of free-will it is
usual to quote his " De servo arbitrio" but the " Assertio "
already contains in substance all the strictures embodied in
his later attacks.

After dealing with other subjects, he there declares that, as for
the question of free-will, he had expressed himself far too feebly
when speaking of the semblance of freedom ; the term " liberum
arbitrium " was a device of the devil ; hence he withdraws his
previous statement which erred on the side of weakness ; he
ought to have said that free-will was a lie, an invention (" fig-
mentum in rebus"). "No one has the power even to think
anything evil or good, but everything takes place agreeably with
stern necessity (' omnia de necessitate absolute eveniunt '), as
Wiclif rightly taught, though his proposition was condemned by
the Council of Constance."1

Luther now appeals to the belief in fate with which the heathen
were already acquainted. He also appeals to the Gospel which
surely gives him reason, for does not Christ say (Matt, x.) :
" Not a sparrow shall fall to the ground without your Father in
Heaven," and "the very hairs of your head are all numbered " ?
And in Isaias xli. does not God mockingly challenge the people :
" Do ye also good and evil if you can " ? The Pope and the
defenders of the Bull, with their doctrine of free-will, he looks
upon as prophets of Baal and he calls to them ironically : " Cheer
up and be men ; do what you can, attempt what is possible, and
prepare yourselves for grace by your own free-will. It is a great
disgrace that you are unable to produce anything from experience
in support of your teaching."

" The experience of all," he says boldly, " testifies to the
contrary " ; God has our life in His hands, and how much more
all our actions, even the most insignificant. It is Pelagian to say
that free-will is able, by means of earnest effort (" si studiose
laboret "), to do anything good ; it is Pelagian to think that the
will can prepare itself for grace ; Pelagian too, is the principle
handed down in the schools, that God gives His grace to the man
who does what he can. For if we do what we can, we perform
the works of the flesh ! " Do we not know the works which are
of the flesh ? St. Paul specifies them, Galatians v. : Fornication,
uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, envies, murders, etc. This is
what free-will works, i.e. what is of its nature, viz. works of
death ; for in Romans viii. we read : ' The wisdom of the flesh is
death and an enemy to God.' How can we then speak of prepara-

1 Ibid,, p. 146 = p. 230. This passage was toned down, after Luther's
death, in the Wittenberg ed. (1546) and Jena ed. (1557); Kostlin,
" Luthers Theologie," 22, p. 316 n.

ON FREE-WILL 233

tion for grace by enmity with God, of preparation for life by
death ? "l

In these somewhat disorderly effusions of his pen he repeatedly
harks back to the Bible, strangely forcing his texts. Paul denies
free-will, saying in Ephesians i. : " God works all in all," thus
confirming the fact " that man, even when he does and thinks what
is wrong, is not responsible."2 " God even works what is evil in
the impious,"3 as is written in Proverbs xvi. : " The Lord hath
made all things for Himself, the wicked also for the evil day,"
and in Romans i., of the heathen : " God delivered them up to a
reprobate sense to do those things which are not convenient."

Room is also found for philosophical arguments : God as the
highest Being cannot permit Himself to be influenced by man's
changeableness, in the way that free-will would involve ; on the
contrary, He must, by virtue of His nature, determine everything
Himself, down to the very smallest matters ; nor does He do so
merely by the " inftuentia generalis " (" concursus divinus
generalis "), which, according to the " chatterboxes," alone
assists our free-will ; free-will must perish (" periit ") in order to
make room for a strict and compelling influence. This applies
to our pardon, for we cannot elicit or snatch this from God by
our own efforts, as though we surprised Him in slumber. " 0
furor, furorum omnium novissimus ! " he exclaims of the Papal
Bull in the midst of this philosophical and theological digression :
" All is of necessity, for we — every man and every creature — live
and act not as we- will, but as God wills. In God's presence the
will ceases to exi«t."4

It is not surprising that Augustine also is made to bear witness
in his favour.

This Doctor of the Church, though in many passages he
declares himself emphatically in favour of free-will, nevertheless
frequently in his works against the Pelagians asserts (perhaps too
strongly were we to consider his words apart from that heated
controversy) that, without grace, and left to itself, free-will
cannot as a rule avoid sin ; on such occasions he does not always
express the firm conviction he also holds, viz. that the will
nevertheless of its own strength is able to do what is naturally
good. In one passage, he says for instance, apparently quite
generally : " Free-will in its captive state has strength only to
sin ; for righteousness it has none until it has been set free by
God, and then only with His help."6 And elsewhere again :

1 " Werke," ibid., p. 143 ff. =p. 227 ff. It is strange but character
istic how he appeals to experience as against the doctrine of free-will :
everyone possessed arguments against it " ex vita propria. . . . Secus
rem se habere monstrat experientia omnium " (p. 145— p. 230). His
views of concupiscence come in here.

2 " Non est homo in manu sua, etiam mala operans et cogitans " (ibid.,
p. 145 = p. 230).

3 " Nam et mala opera in impiis Deus operatur " (ibid.).

4 " Assertio," etc. "Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 145 ff. ; " Opp. Lat.
var.," 5, p. 231 f.

5 " Contra duas epp. Pelag.," 1. 3, c. 8.

234 THE APOSTASY

"Free-will can do nothing but sin, when the path of truth is
hidden."1 This latter assertion Luther places as a trump card
at the head of the discussion of his thirty-sixth condemned
proposition, though he alters the wording. 2 As a matter of fact it
is not difficult to prove, as we shall do below, that Luther was
quite wrong in appealing to the Doctor of Hippo in support of his
own teaching.

Of more importance for the present account is the significant
position which Luther assigns to his supposed rediscovery of
the doctrine of the captive will. He is full of enthusiasm for the
idea of a religion of the enslaved will. This new religion of the
enslaved will appears to him in the light of a " theology of the
cross," which, in return for his renunciation of free-will, descends
upon man in order to point out to him the true road to God. " For
what honour remains to God were we able to accomplish so
much ? " " The world has allowed itself to be seduced by the
flattering doctrine of free-will which is pleasing to nature."3 If
any point of his teaching, then certainly that of the captive will
is to be accounted one of the " most sublime mysteries of our
faith and religion, which only the godless know not, but to
which the true Christian holds fast."4

It fills one with grief and tears, he says, to see how the Pope
and his followers — poor creatures — in their frivolity and mad
ness, fail to recognise this truth. All the other Popish articles
are endurable in comparison with this vital point, the Papacy,
Councils, Indulgences and all the other unnecessary tomfoolery.5
Not one jot do they understand concerning the will. Sooner
shall the heavens fall than their eyes be opened to this basic
truth. Christ, it is true, has nought to do with Belial, or dark
ness with light. The Popish Church knows only how to teach
and to sell good works, its worldly pomp does not agree with
our theology of the cross, which condemns all that the Pope
approves, and produces martyrs. . . . That Church, given up
to riches, luxury and worldliness, is determined to rule. But it
rules without the cross, and that is the strongest proof by which
I overcome it. ... Without the cross, without suffering, the
faithful city is become a harlot, and the true kingdom of Anti
christ incarnate.6

He concludes, congratulating himself upon his having given
Holy Scripture its rights.

Scripture is " full " of the doctrine on grace described above,
but for at least three hundred years no writer has taken pity

" De spiritu et litt.," c. 3, n. 5.

2 In place of " Neque liberum arbitrium quidquid nisi ad peccandum
valet, si lateat veritatis via," he makes Augustine say : " Liberum arbi
trium sine gratia non valet nisi ad peccandum.'''' Of the subject itself
sufficient explanation will be found in Catholic handbooks. Cp., for
instance, Hurter, " Theolog. specialis," pars. 211, 1903, p. 55 f.

3 " Assertio," etc. " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 146 : " Opp. Lat.
var.," 5, p. 233. * Ibid., pp. 95-158.

5 Ibid., p. 148 = 234. « Ibid.

ON FREE-WILL 235

upon grace and written in its defence, on the contrary all have
written against it. " Minds have now become so dulled by their
habitual delusion that I see no one who is able to oppose us on
the ground of Holy Scripture. We need an Esdras to bring
forth the Bible again, for [the Popish] Nabuchodonosor has
trampled it under foot to such an extent that no trace of
even one syllable remains."1 He is grateful for the cheering
" revival of the study of Greek and Hebrew throughout the
world," and is glad to think that ho has turned this to good
account in his biblical labours. With this consolation he writes
his final " Amen " at the end of this curious document on the
religion of the captive will.

Since Luther in the above "Assertio" against the Bull of
condemnation sets up Scripture as the sole foundation of
theology — he could not well do otherwise, seeing that he
had rejected all external ecclesiastical authority — we might
have anticipated that, in the application of his newly pro
claimed principle of the Bible only, he would have taken
pains to demonstrate its advantages in this work on free
will by the exercise of some caution in his exegesis. It is
true that he declares, when defending the theory of the
Bible only : " Whoever seeks primarily and solely the
teaching of God's Word, upon him the spirit of God will
come down and expel our spirit so that AVC shall arrive at
theological truth without fail." " I will not expound the
Scripture by my own spirit, or by the spirit of any man,
but will interpret it merely by itself and according to its
own spirit."2 And again: It often happens that circum
stances and a mysterious, incomprehensible impulse will
give to one man a right understanding such as is hidden
from the industry of others.3 Yet when, on the basis of the
Bible only, he attempts to " overthrow his papistical
opponents at the first onslaught,"4 lie brings forward texts
which no one, not even Luther's best friend, could regard
as having any bearing on the subject.

He quotes, for instance, the passage where the believer
is likened to the branch of the vine Avhich must remain
engrafted on Christ the true vine, in order to escape the fire
of hell, and finds therein a proof of his own view, that grace
completely evacuates the will, a proof so strong that lie

1 Weim. ed., 5, p. 149 = p. 235.

2 Ibid., p. 97f.=p. 161 f. 3 Ibid., p. 100 = p. 165.
4 "Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 96 = p. 158.

236 THE APOSTASY

exclaims : " You speak with the voice of a harlot, O most
holy Vicar of Christ, in thus contradicting your Master who
speaks of the vine."1 Another example. In Proverbs xvi.
it is written : " It is the part of man to prepare the soul
and of the Lord to govern the tongue," hence man, reasons
Luther, who cannot even control his tongue, has no free-will
to do what is good.2 There too we read : " The heart of man
disposeth his way, but the Lord must direct his steps," and
further on : " As the divisions of water, the heart of the
king is in the hand of the Lord, whithersoever He will He
shall turn it." After adducing these texts, which merely
emphasise the general Providence of God, Luther thinks he
is justified in demanding : " Where then is free-will ? It
is a pure creation of fancy."3

The saying of the clay and the potter (Isa. Ixiv. 8) which
manifestly alludes to the Creation and expresses man's
consequent state of dependence, he refers without more ado,
both here and also later, to a continuous, purely passive
relationship to God which entirely excludes free-will.4
When Christ says (Matt, xxiii. 37 ; Luke xiii. 34) that He
wished to gather the children of Jerusalem like a hen under
His wings, but that they would not (KOI OVK ^eXr/o-are),
Luther takes this as meaning : They could not ; they did
not wish to, simply because they did not possess that free
will which his foes believe in. It might however be said, he
thinks, that Christ only " spoke there in human fashion "
of the willingness of Jerusalem, i.e. " merely according to
man's mode of speech," just as Scripture, for the sake of the
simple, frequently speaks of God as though He were a man.5
It is plain from his explanation that Luther, as an eminent
Protestant and theologian says, " was seeking to escape
from the testimony to the Divine Will that all men be
saved."6

The best text against the hated free-will appeared to him

1 "Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 142 f.=p. 226. 2 Ibid., p. 145 -p. 229.

3 Cp. ibid., p. 145 = p. 230 : " Unde non est dubium, satana magislro
in ecclesiam venisse hoc nomen liberum arbitrium, ad seducendos homines
a via Dei in mas suas proprias."

4 Cp. " Opp. Lat. exeg.," 1, p. 106. Kostlin, " Luthers Theologie,"
22, p. 70.

5 " Werke," Erl. ed., 102, p. 235. " Kirchenpostille," Sermon of
1521. Cp. Kostlin, ibid., I2, p. 365.

6 See Kostlin, ibid., p. 366. He admits (22, p. 82) that Luther
" expressly denies free-will " to those who " would not."

ON FREE-WILL 237

to be Ephesians ii. 3, where St. Paul deals with original sin
and its ethical consequences. " We were by nature children
of wrath, even as the rest." " There is not," so he assures
his readers, a " clearer, more concise and striking testimony
in the Bible against free-will " ; " for if all by reason of their
nature are children of wrath, then free-will is also a child
of wrath,"1 etc.

He handled Scripture as an executioner would handle a
criminal. All unconsciously he was ever doing violence to
the words of the Bible. We naturally wonder whether in
the whole history of exegesis such twisting of the sense of
the Bible had ever before been perpetrated. Yet we find
these interpretations in the very pages where Luther first
exposed his programme of the Bible only, and declared
that he at least would expound the Word of God according
to its own sense, according to the " Spirit of God," and
setting aside all personal prejudice. The old interpretation,
on the other hand, which was to be found in the book of
Lyra, with which Luther was acquainted, gave the correct
meaning retained among scholars to our own day, not
merely of the texts already quoted, but of many other
striking passages alleged by Luther then or afterwards
against free-will.

Luther proceeds rather more cautiously in the German
edition of the "Assertio," which speedily followed the Latin.

It deals with the denial of free-will at considerably less
length. Perhaps, as was often the case with him, after he
had recovered from the first excitement caused by the
condemnation of the articles, he may have been sobered,
or perhaps he was reluctant to let loose all the glaring
and disquieting theses of the "Assertio " in the wide
circle of his German readers, whom they might have
startled and whose fidelity to his cause was at that time,
after the sentence of outlawry, such a vital matter to him.
In later editions of the Latin text some of his sayings were
softened even during his lifetime so as to avoid giving
offence.

Luther had been careful in the "Assertio," just as he had

been in his previous treatment of the subject, not to take

into consideration the consequences involved by his denial

of free-will ; that, for instance, it follows that it is not man

1 Weim. ed., 7, p. 147 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 5, p. 232,

238 THE APOSTASY

who actually does what is evil, but rather God who works in
him, and that many were condemned merely on account of
the necessity of sinning imposed upon them by God. Of
this he has as yet nothing to say, though he was, shortly
after, to make an attempt to obviate the difficulties.

In his translation of the Bible, in 1522, he had to render the
passage of the First Epistle to Timothy (ii. 4) : " God will have
all men to be saved (<ru0r)i>ai, ' salvos fieri ') and to come to the
knowledge of the truth." This he translated : " God wills that
all be assisted." He sought to escape the doctrine of the Divine
Will for the salvation of all men, by attributing to the principal
word a " comprehensive and somewhat indefinite sense," for
that " all be assisted " may only mean, that all are to be preached
to, prayed for, or assisted by fraternal charity. l

In a letter written at that time he even declares, that the
Apostle says nothing more than that " it was God's will that we
should pray for all classes, preach the truth and be helpful to
everyone, both bodily and spiritually " ; that it did not follow
from this that God called all men to salvation.2 "And even
though many other passages should be brought forward, yet all
must be understood in this sense, otherwise the Divine Provi
dence [i.e. prevision, predestination] and election from all
eternity would mean nothing at all, whereas St. Paul insists
very strongly upon this."3 Thus his own interpretation of Paul,
the wholly subjective interpretation which he thought he had
received through an interior revelation, was to govern the Bible as
a rule admitting of no exception ; it was, for instance, to elucidate
for him the Epistles of Peter. In a sermon delivered about
February, ^1523, on the Second Epistle of Peter, he says of the
passage : " The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but
that all should return to penance," that this was " one of the
verses which might well lead a man to believe this epistle was
not written by St. Peter at all," at any rate, the author here
" fell short of the apostolic spirit."4 At the back of this opinion

1 Kostlin, ibid., I2, p. 366.

2 To Hans von Rechenberg, August 18, 1522, " Werke," Erl. ed.,
22, p. 33 (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 444). This letter to the promoter of
Lutheranism at Freistadt in Silesia, was at once spread abroad in
print and is included amongst Luther's catechetical works. Later he
finds in the same passage, viz. Timothy ii. 4, merely an expression of
God's desire that we should render our neighbours "all temporal and
spiritual assistance " (" Werke," Erl. ed., 51, p. 316 ff.). In support
of this he appeals to Psalm xxxvi. : " Men and beasts Thou wilt pre
serve, O Lord." To find in Scripture that salvation was open to
all men whose free-will was ready to accept it, was " to pluck out
some words of Scripture and fashion them according to our own
fancy" (p. 317).

3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 51, p. 317.

4 " Werke," Weim. ed., 14, p. 73 : Erl. ed., 52, p. 271 ; cp. ibid.,
p. 69 = p. 267.

ON FREE-WILL 239

lay Luther's attachment to his pet doctrine and method of
interpretation.

Luther's efforts to get rid of the plain texts on the salvation
which is offered to all without exception arose, accordingly, from
his strong aversion to free-will, and also from a certain fear of
man's co-operation by means of works (even performed under
grace), which would result from free-will and lead to salvation.
He admits this plainly enough where he expounds 1 Timothy
ii. 4 : " This saying of St. Paul, the Papists assert, confirms
free-will ; for since he says, that ' God wills that every man be
assisted ' [rather, that every man be saved], it no longer depends
upon Him, but upon us, whether we comply with His Will or
not. This is how they come to use these words as an objection
against us."1

For the time being he had but little to say of predestina
tion, though he had by no means given up the idea of
absolute predestination, even to hell, which he had advo
cated in the Commentary on Romans. (See vol. i., p. 187 ff.,
237 ff.). He probably had reasons of his own for being
more reticent in his public utterances on this subject. It is
only later, when treating of the revealed and the hidden
God, that he again lays stress on his doctrine of predestina
tion.

When Melanchthon published his " Loci communes rerum
theologicarum," in December, 1521, in this work, which was
the technical exposition of Lutheranism at that time, he
gave clear expression to the denial of free-will. " All that
happens," he says there, " happens of necessity (' necessario
eveniunt ') in accordance with the Divine predestination ;
there is no such thing as freedom of the will."2 Luther
praised this work as an " invictus libellus," worthy, not only
of immortality, but of taking its place in the canon of the
Bible.3 It was only later that Melanchthon came to a more
correct view, making no secret of his rejection of Luther's
determinism.

It is of interest to note how Luther, in his practical
writings and exhortations, passes over his denial of free-

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 51, p. 317.

2 " Corpus ref.," 21, p. 87 f. Later we read : " Fateor in externo
rerum delectu esse quandam libertatem, internes vero affectus prorsus
nego in potestate nostra esse " (ibid., p. 92). Both passages in Kolde's
edition based on the editio princeps, Leipzig, 1900, 3rd. ed., pp. 07, 74.

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 601 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, p. 117.

240 THE APOSTASY

will in utter silence. Such a denial would, needless to say,
have been out of place in works intended for the furtherance
of the Christian life. In admonishing people to keep the
commandments of God, to cultivate virtue and practise
charity, we must necessarily take free-will for granted. On
such occasions, therefore, Luther's language is the very
reverse of that which we have just heard and furnishes a
practical proof of the falseness of his theory.

Although he had commenced his attacks on free-will in 1516,
yet in the practical writings which appeared in 1517 and 1518,
in his exposition of the Penitential Psalms, the Our Father and
the Ten Commandments, he speaks as though the Christian were
free, with the help of grace, to hearken to his exhortations and
follow the path of salvation. In his sermons on the Decalogue he
even calls the opinion " godless," that any man is forced by
necessity to sin and not rather led to commit it by his own
inclination. All that God has made is good and thus all natural
inclination is to what is good.1 And yet, in 1516, he had taught
that man of necessity, though not with reluctance, follows his
predominating inclination to evil.2

When, at the commencement of 1520, he wrote his detailed
" Sermon on Good Works " — to complete, or rather to vindicate,
his theory of faith alone against the objections raised — dedicating
it to Duke Johann of Saxony, he there expressed himself so
unhesitatingly in favour of independent moral activity as to
make it appear quite free and meritorious. " Since man's nature
and disposition cannot remain for a moment without doing or
omitting, suffering or fleeing — for life is ever restless, as we see —
let whoever aspires to piety and good works begin to exercise
himself in living and working at all times in this belief, learning
to do or leave undone all things in this assurance [of faith], and
he will then find how much there is to keep him busy." Doing
thus the believer will find that everything is right, for " it must
be good and meritorious."3 Even concerning faith we read in
this remarkable work, that it must be united to charity, nay,
that this must precede it, though charity is in reality the peculiar
and noblest work of an unfettered will which strives after God.
" Such confidence and faith brings with it charity and hope,
indeed, if we regard it aright, charity comes first, or at least with
faith."4

At a time when he was already quite convinced of the absence
of free-will, Luther wrote, in October, 1520, his tract " On the
Freedom of a Christian man."5

1 Kostlin, "Luthers Theologie," I2, p. 144.

2 Thesis 1G of the Disputation of 1516 (see vol. i., p. 310) : " Voluntas
non est liber a, sed servit, licet non invita."

3 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 212 ; 9, p. 238 ; Erl. ed., 162*, p. 135.

4 Ibid., p. 210 = 235 = 131. 6 See above, p. 27 ff.

ON FREE-WILL 24l

There he teaches that the Christian is "free lord of all and
subject to none." The servitude of the body does not extend
to the soul ; m God's Holy Word the soul lives a free and godly
life, enjoying wisdom, liberty and everything that is good • true
the interior man, in his freedom and righteousness by faith has
no need of any law or good works, but, since we are not altogether
spiritual, we are obliged to exercise the body by means of
discipline lest it resist the interior man, i.e. the will which rebels
against God must be " quelled " more and more, so far as the
carnal mind calls for subjugation, in order that the works which
proceed from faith may be performed out of pure charity In all
his works man must endeavour to direct his intention towards
serving and being helpful to his neighbour. This is to serve God
freely and joyfully ; by thus acting he will defy the upholders
of ceremonies and the enemies of liberty who cling to the
ordinances of the Church. In this way Luther is teaching the
true Christian freedom, which " sets the heart free from all sins
laws and ordinances, and which is as far above all other liberty
as the heavens are above the earth."1— And yet after his
previous assertions against free-will, we are forced to ask whether
he had not himself destroyed the basis of all this, for the free-will
he attacked was the fundamental condition of all spiritual action
which might be called free, and surely quite essential to his
vaunted " Christian freedom."

In his sermons, expositions and practical writings of the next
tew years he continued, with a few exceptions, ' to speak to the
iaitnlul as though they still enjoyed moral freedom of the will
and liberty of choice, notwithstanding the position he had
ussumed in the "Assertio." In what he says of earthly business
and of life, public and private, his views are likewise not at all
those of a determinist. Such inconsistency was altogether
characteristic of him throughout his life.

In spite of all his attempts to make his view of the will
acceptable and to accommodate it to the prevailing convic
tions of humanity, many, even amongst his own followers
and admirers, were shocked at his attacks on free-will.
People were scandalised, more particularly by the con
sequences involved.

At Erfurt his friends disputed as to how God could
possibly work evil in man, and Luther was forced to request
them to desist from enquiring into such matters, since it was
clear that we did what was evil because God ceased to work
in us : they ought to occupy themselves all the more
diligently with the moral interests of the new churches.3

1 " Werke," Weim. eel., 7, p. 39 ; Erl. ed., 27, p. 199. Cp. Kostlin-
Kawerau, 1, p. 358 f'f.

2 See below, p. 288, the Sermon in 1531.

3 To Johann Lang, April 12, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 331.

II. — R

242 THE APOSTASY

Capito declared himself openly against Luther's theories
concerning the absolute enslavement of the will.1 The
Humanist Mosellanus (Peter Schade), a great admirer of the
Wittenbergers, spoke so strongly at Leipzig against the
propositions deduced from Luther's teaching on predestina
tion to hell, that the latter was warned of what had occurred. 2
Many who had previously been favourably disposed to
Luther were repelled, by his teaching on the enslaved will,
and fell away then or later, for instance, the learned
naturalist George Agricola.3

Mosellanus, like many others, now went over to the side
of Erasmus, who, it had now leaked out, was growing more
and more to dislike Luther the more the latter showed
himself in his true colours.

Erasmus — His Attitude in General and his Attack on Luther

in 1524

Erasmus had frequently been invited by the highest
authorities to take up his pen and enter the field against
Luther. This, however, presented some difficulty to him
owing to his timidity, his anxiety to play the part of medi
ator and his real sympathy for many of Luther's demands.
Even before Erasmus had reached any decision, Luther and
his friends had already a premonition of the great Humanist's
coming attack.

On August 8, 1522, Erasmus, while still wavering, wrote
to Mosellanus concerning the desire expressed by the
Emperor, the King of England and certain Roman Cardinals.
" All want me to attack Luther. I do not approve of
Luther's cause, but have many reasons for preferring any
other task to this."4 In May, however, a work on the
question of predestination and free-will was already looked
for in Lutheran circles at Leipzig, and the opinion was freely

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 657.

2 Cp. Luther to Kaspar Borner, Professor at Leipzig, May 28,
1522, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 375.

3 N. Paulus points out in his article " Georg Agricola "
(" Histor-polit. Blatter," 136, 1905, p. 793 ff.), that this scholar had
never been one of Luther's followers, and was particularly repelled
by his views on the absence of free-will, which he opposed as early
as 1522.

4 " Luthers Briefwechsel," 3, p. 377, n. 6, from Weller's " Altes
aus alien Teilen der Gesch.," 1, 1765, p. 18.

ERASMUS 243

expressed that Luther " would probably get the worst in
the encounter." Luther, nevertheless, sought to inspire his
friends with courage and confidence.

That Erasmus should have been solicited by so many
parties to write against Luther was due to the quite extra
ordinary fame and influence of this scholar who, by common
consent, was the first authority of the day on classical and
critical studies.

The prolific Dutch author was venerated with fanatical
admiration by the younger Humanists as the founder and head
of their school. Mutian had gone so far as to write : " He is
divine and to be honoured as a god." The term " Divus
Erasmus " was frequently applied to him. Since, owing to his
peculiar standpoint in ecclesiastical matters, he was reckoned by
Luther's co-religionists as one of their party, the request to write
against Luther amounted to an invitation publicly to renounce
all allegiance to a party which was seeking to secure him in its
own interests.

His great fame in the domain of learning was unquestionably
well merited. From his ever-changing place of abode, from
England, Italy, the Netherlands and especially (1521-1529) from
Basle, lie sent forth into the learned world his books, all written
in the most fluent Latin, and dealing not only with classical
subjects and matters of general literary culture, but also with
religious questions and historical criticism. Thanks to his
philological learning lie was able to handle most advantageously
the text of the Bible and the Fathers of the Church. The
applause which was showered upon him by all scholars who were
dissatisfied with the traditional course of studies was due not
merely to his polished language and his wit, but chiefly to the
new method of which he made use, particularly in dealing with
the Fathers, viz. to his endeavour to seek out the best and oldest
sources with the help of criticism. Among the many who formed
themselves on his example, and, so to speak, in his school, were
several of Luther's friends and co-workers, for instance, Melanch-
thon and Justus Jonas.

The " Enchiridion militis christiani," published by Erasmus in
1501, was greeted with joy by the neo-Humanists as a new present
ment, in harmony with the tendency of the day, of the duties of
a Christian ; l many of them had, however, no better conception

1 We may allude, for instance, to the beautiful words which,
strange to say, have been described by certain Protestants as a moral
istic explaining away of the true " evangelical comprehension of the
person of Christ and His work " : " Ut certiore cursu queas ad felicita-
tetn contendere, haec tibi quarto, sit regula, ut totius vitae tuae Christum
velut unicum scopum prcefigas, ad quern unum omnia studia, omnes cona-
tus, omne otium ac negotium conferas. Christum vero csse puta non
vocem inanem, sed nihil aliud quam charitatem, simplicitatem, patientiam,

244 THE APOSTASY

of Christianity than Erasmus himself, who had already then
forsaken his Order — he was an Augustinian Canon — though he
received the requisite dispensation only in 1517, and whose
performance of his priestly duties was anything but satisfactory. l
The writing in question, a devotional manual for the learned,
also made him many enemies, for, in it, he attacked various
popular devotions and religious institutions sanctioned by the
Church, ostensibly in order to bring to light the true piety.2
Even more so was this the case with his " Praise of Folly " (" Enco
mium Moriae," 1509), a satire on the morals and ecclesiastical
conditions of his time, brimful of exaggeration and animosity
against certain institutions in the Church, more particularly
the religious life. Among those who were desirous of innova
tions, the book was so well received that it ran through at least
twenty-seven editions during the author's lifetime. The proud,
witty fault-finding of the great man achieved an equally great
success in the " Colloquia familiaria," which appeared in 1518 and
showed his style at its perfection. Intended as a handbook of
latinity and general conduct, it was fated to be excluded from
the more serious schools on account of the licentiousness of tone
and language which pervades certain chapters.

The opinion of this leading spokesman of the Renaissance was,
that it was necessary to break away completely from the Middle
Ages ; that for four hundred years Christ had been almost for
gotten (" Christus pene abolitus "), and hence a return to the
simplicity of the gospel was indispensable ; to the " simplicitas
doctrinae," secured by the stripping off of all the padding of
scholasticism, was to be united the original " simplicitas vitae
christianae " and neglect of external practices. He set up a
" Philosophy of Christ," of which the bare sobriety had no need

puritatem, breviter, quidquid ille docuit " (" Enchiridion," Basil., 1519,
p. 93). G. Kawerau quotes from the correspondence of Justus Jonas
which he edited, 1, p. 31, the words of Eobanus Hessus (1519) on the
" Enchiridion " : " Plane divinum opus," and the following utterance
of Ulrich Zasius (1520) on the same, from the correspondence of
Beatus Rhenanus, p. 230 : " Miles christianus, quern tamen, si vel solus
ab Erasmo exisset, immortali laude prcedicare conveniebat, ut qui chris-
tiano homini verce salutis compendium, brevi velut enchiridio demonstret."
" Luther und Erasmus," in " Deutsch-Evangel. Blatter," 1906, Hit. 1,
in the reprint, p. 4.

1 In a letter to P. Servatius, July 9, 1514, Erasmus says : " Volup-
tatibus etsi quando fui inquinatus nunquam servivi " (" Opp.," ed.
Lugd., 3, col. 1527). Perhaps he meant more by this than when he
says of Thomas More, in a letter to Ulrich von Hutten, July 23, 1519,
which is sometimes cited in comparison : " Cum cetas ferret, non ab-
horruit [Th. Morns'} a puellarum amoribus, sed citra infamiam, et sic ut
oblatis magis frueretur, quam captatis et animo mutuo caperetur potius
quam coitu " (" Opp.," 3, col. 474 seq.).

2 A. Diirer's exclamation given above, p. 41 : " O Erasmus Roder-
damus, Knight of Christ, ride forth," etc., is an allusion to the "miles
christianus " depicted by Erasmus in the " Enchiridion." Kawerau,
ibid., p. 2.

ERASMUS 245

of the Pharisaism of ceremonies, i.e. of the invocation of Saints
and the veneration of images and relics, of monastic vows,
canonical hours, fast-days, etc. Erasmus was not desirous of
shaking the foundations of the ancient dogmas, nor did he, like
Luther, lay hands upon the authority of the Church ; yet he
attacked so many of her institutions and with such terribly
effective satire that he seemed to threaten the Church herself.
Hardly ever had respect for the Roman See been so undermined
as by his censure of the Popes and his tendency to contrast their
assumption of authority with the humility of the Bishops of
Rome in olden days.

Nor was even the Bible safe from his love of innovation,
inasmuch as he was wont to elucidate more particularly the
facts of the Old Testament with the help of a spiritual interpreta
tion, termed by him allegorical, by which the historical and
revealed contents were explained away. His wish, too, was that
the Bible, with notes thus interpreting its narratives, should be
read by all, even by the unlearned.1 The "Simple Theology,"
which he was eager to set up in place of Scholasticism, beneath
the splendour of the Humanistic language in which it was clothed,
was exceedingly poor in ideas ; so elastic was his language also,
" so infinitely flexible and accommodating, so susceptible of
being variously interpreted according to individual taste, that
people of all creeds and of no creed . . . could point to him as
their guide."2 He had himself to blame for the fact, that he was
regarded with great suspicion in Catholic circles, for, owing to his
diplomatic caution, no one knew how far he intended to go in his
censure of ecclesiastical institutions ; whether he merely wished
to blame the corruption then rampant, or whether he wished to
strike a blow at the Church herself. Besides his positive hatred
of the monastic life, what is particularly noticeable is his funda
mental rejection of Scholasticism, which, according to his oft-
repeated assertion, " had replaced God's Word by human ideas."
As a Protestant theologian opines : " We may say, that the
mighty intellectual work, which, in spite of all its faults, was
embodied in the ingenious systems of the Schoolmen failed
entirely to be appreciated by him."3 Nor was this the only thing
he failed to appreciate. He understood nothing of the mighty
evolution of the Church in previous ages, of the character of her
discipline and canon law, of her theology and of the great results
attained by mediaeval philosophy. He did not even possess
sufficient knowledge of the practical requirements of his own age,
when Luther's hand was already at work, demolishing the edifice
of the Church. The one-sided scholar, blinded by the incense of
praise, was unfitted for the task of directing his contemporaries in
matters of religion.

It is wonderful to see how well he knew how to secure the good-

1 The passages in proof of his " rationalistic interpretation of
Scripture " are to be found in Janssen, " Hist, of the German People "
(Engl. trans.), 3, p. 21 ff.

2 Janssen, ibid., p. 15. 3 Kawerau, ibid., p. 5.

246 THE APOSTASY

will of dignitaries, secular or ecclesiastical, by low flattery
expressed in classic language. He exhibited very markedly
certain qualities not infrequently observed in eminent Humanists,
viz. want of character, fickleness in words and behaviour and
extraordinary sensitiveness to criticism. His vanity was matched
by the petty vindictiveness of the satires with which he lashes
his opponents, and all who dared to disagree with him. Material
assistance from the great ones of the earth was never lacking to
him, the demi-god of the intellectual sphere ; when declining an
invitation to go to Germany he could say : " The Emperor
implores me to come to Spain, King Ferdinand wants me at
Vienna, Margaret in Brabant and Henry in England ; Sigismund
asks me to go to Poland and Francis to France, and all offer me
rich emoluments."1

It is not surprising, that when Luther came forward many
elements of his new teaching were at once welcomed with
sympathy by Erasmus and his school.

" It cannot be denied, that Luther commenced to play an
excellent part and to vindicate the cause of Christ — which
had been almost wiped off the face of the earth — amidst
great and general applause." 2 Thus wrote Erasmus to Duke
George of Saxony as late as 1522. Many of Erasmus's
sayings in his books and confidential letters in favour of
Luther's reform were cherished as oracles. His testimonies
in favour of Luther's writings and his private life were
spread far and wide, though he really knew little of Luther's
works (those written in German he could not even read), and
owed all his information concerning his life to Humanist
friends who were prejudiced in Luther's favour.

It was true that he was not personally acquainted with Luther,
he wrote on April 14, 1519, from Antwerp to Frederick the
Elector of Saxony, and, of his writings, he had, so far, read only
certain extracts ;3 " but all who were conversant with his life
approved of it, since he was above every suspicion of ambition.
The purity of his character is such that he even wins over the
heathen. No one has shown his error or refuted him, and yet
they call him a heretic." Hence he urges the Prince not to

1 To Christoph von Stadioii, Bishop of Augsburg, August 26, 1528,
" Opp.," 3, col. 1095 seq.

z On September 3, 1522, " Opp.," 3, col. 731. Cp. Fel. Gess,
" Akten mid Brief e zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs," Leipzig,
1905, p. 352.

8 At the end of 1520 he declares that he has only read ten or twelve
pages of Luther's writings. To Campegius, December 6, 1520, and
to Leo X, September 13, 1520, " Opp.," 3, col. 596, 578.

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 247

abandon an innocent man to malicious persons.1 It was probably
this letter which confirmed the Elector in his determination not
to withdraw from Luther his protection. " Luther's life is
approved by everyone here," Erasmus writes on April 22 of the
same year from Louvain to Melanchthon ; " opinions differ with
regard to his learning. . . . Luther has rightly found fault with
some things, would that he had done so with a success equal to
his courage."2 His letters to England are in the same strain :
" All are agreed in praise of this man's life. It is in itself no
small matter that his conduct is so blameless that even his
enemies can find nothing with which to reproach him."3

To Luther himself, on May 30, 1519, in reply to a friendly and
very submissive letter received from him, he complains of the
attacks made upon him at Louvain as the alleged prime instigator
of the Lutheran movement. He had replied — what as a matter
of fact deprives the testimony he had given in his favour of much
of its weight — that Luther was quite unknown to him (" te mihi
ignotissimum esse"}, that he had not yet read his books and
was therefore unable to express either approval or disapproval.
"I hold myself, as far as is permissible, aloof (l me integruni
servo '), that I may be of greater service to the revival of learning.
More is gained by well-mannered modesty than by storming."
He adds other admonitions to peaceableness and prudence, and,
after some cautious expressions of praise and thanks for his
Commentary on the Psalms,4 at which he had been able to cast
only a cursory glance, finally \vishcs him " a daily increase of the
Spirit of Christ to His honour and the public weal."6 • By this

1 Cp. Max Richter, " Erasmus und seine Stellung zu Luther,"
Leipzig, 1907, p. 10 ft'.

2 Ibid., col. 431 scq. Cp. his statement to Jodocus [i.e. Justus]
Jonas of July 31, 1518 : "Luther had given some excellent advice ;
had he but gone to work more gently. As to the value of his doctrines,
I neither can, nor wish to, express an opinion" (" Opp.," 3, col. 334).^

3 To Cardinal Wolsey : " Vita mag no omnium consensu probatur,"
etc. (" Opp.," 3, col. 322). Cp. his letter to Campegius, of December 6,
1520. To Leo X he writes, on September 13, 1520 (col. 578) : " Bonis
igitur illlus [Lutheri] favi . . . immo ylorice Chrisli in illo favi."
Assurances such as these may well explain Rome's delay in condemning
Luther.

4 It is of a portion of the work (described briefly in volume i.,
p. 386) which had then appeared, that Erasmus writes: " Vchementer
arrident et spero magnani utilitatem allaturos " (col. 445). How ready
he was to express approval of any work of which a copy was pre
sented to him is shown by his reply to the Bohemian Brethren in 1511,
who had sent him one of their several confessions of faith founded
on the new interpretation of Holy Scripture : Of what he had " read
in their book," he writes, he had " thoroughly approved and trusted
that the rest was equally correct " ; from any public approval he
preferred, however, to abstain in order not to have his writings cen
sured by the Papists, but to " preserve his reputation and strength
unimpaired for the general good." Janssen, " Hist, of the German
People" (Engl. trans.), 3, p. 20 f.

5 The letter is also to be found in " Luthers Briefwechsel, 2, p. GO rr.

248 THE APOSTASY

letter, which appeared in print a few weeks later, Erasmus
offended both parties ; to Luther's followers the author appeared
too reticent, and to be wanting in cordiality ; to his opponents
he seemed unduly to favour the innovations. To justify himself
he sent out several letters, one being to Archbishop Albert of
Mayence on November 1, 1519. In this he admits the existence
of " certain sparks of an excellent, evangelical spirit" in Luther,
" who is not striving after either honours or riches " and " at whose
writings the best minds take no offence." Luther should not
"be suppressed, but rather brought to a right frame of mind" ;
he finds fault with the fact that in him an honest man has been
unfairly and publicly defamed ; Luther had only too just cause
for his proceeding in the thousand abuses prevailing in ecclesi
astical life and in theology. Here again he is careful to add, as
usual, that he had not found time to peruse Luther's writings.1
This letter, which was to reach Albert through Hutten, and with
which he at once became acquainted, Luther calls an " egregia
epistola," which might well be printed.2 Hutten, in point of fact,
had the letter printed before handing it to the addressee, and, on
his own responsibility, altered the name " Lutherus " into the
more significant " Lutherus noster."*

Erasmus, while thus whitewashing and indirectly furthering
Luther's cause, wrote with less restraint to Zwingli : " It seems
to me that I have taught well-nigh all that Luther teaches, only
less violently, and without so many enigmas and paradoxes."4
It was his desire to be reckoned a leader in every field.

After the breach between Luther and the ecclesiastical
past had been consummated in 1520, Erasmus became more

," 3, col. 514. In his complaints concerning the disorders
of the Church he says, for instance : " M undus oneratus est . . . tyran-
nidefratrum mendicantium " ; and then " in sacris concionibus minimum
audiri de Ghristo, de potestate pontificis ct de opinionibus recentium fere
omnia" ; in short : " nihil est corruptius ne apud Turcas quidem."

2 Luther to Lang, January 26, 1520, " Brief wechsel," 2, p. 305 :
" egregia epistola, ubi me egregie tutatur, ita tamen, ut nihil minus quam
me tutari videatur, sicut solet pro dexteritate sua."

3 F. O. Stichart, " Erasmus von Rotterdam," Leipzig, 1870, p. 325,
Kawerau, ibid., p. 10.

4 On August 31, 1521, " Zwinglii Opp.," 7, p. 310. Cp. Jansscn,
" Hist, of the German People," Engl. trans., 3, p. 17, where the asser
tion that Erasmus had won over Pellicanus and Capito to the Zwinglian
doctrine of the Last Supper is said to be utterly false. Though Erasmus
declares that he never forsook the teaching of the Church on this point,
Melanchthon nevertheless says that he was the actual originator of
the Zwingliefri denial of Christ's presence in the Sacrament. Melanch
thon to Camerarius, July 26, 1529, " Corp. ref.," 1, p. 1083 : " Nostri
inimici ilium [Erasmum] amant, qui multorum dogmatum semina in
suis libris sparsit, quce fortasse longe graviores tumultus aliquando
excitatura fuerant, nisi Lutherus exortus esset ac studia hominum olio
traxisset. Tola ilia tragoedia, irepl denrvov KvpiaKou, ab ipso nata videri
potest."

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 249

and more guarded in his utterances, whether public or
private. His blame of Luther becomes ever more severe,
though he is still desirous of finding a via media, and
is willing to approve of far too much in Luther's action.
The excommunication of the heretic by the ecclesiastical
authorities he describes in one of his letters after the
publication of the Bull as an unfortunate mistake, showing
want of charity ; a peaceful adjustment of the controversy
might easily have been reached by means of a council of
wise men ; this course his biassed mind still regarded as
feasible.1

It was on July G, 1520, only a few days before Luther broke
out into the exclamation : " The dice have fallen in my favour "
(above, p. 24), that Erasmus, alarmed at the tone of Luther's
controversial writings, wrote to Spalatiii warning him that
Luther was utterly wanting in moderation and that Christ was
surely not guiding his pen.2 He now exerted himself to disr
sociate from Luther those of his friends who had not as yet
entirely gone over to him, and to retain them for the Church, for
instance, Justus Jonas.3 As for himself he declared he would
never be dragged away, either in life or death, from communion
with the ecclesiastical authority ordained by God.4 His com
plaints concerning Luther's unrestrained violence and vitupera
tion were ceaseless ;5 he saw the effect on Luther of the popular
feeling, and the great applause he met with, he even attributed
his obstinacy in great measure to the " plaudits of the world's
stage," which had turned his head.6 In his letters he also gives
expression to a happy thought : the upheaval accomplished by
the Wittenberg Professor was indeed a misfortune for his own
age, but it might also be a remedy for the future. On November
20, 1522, he wrote to King Ferdinand : " God grant that this
drastic and bitter remedy, which, in consequence of Luther's
apostasy, has stirred up all the world like a body that is sick in
every part, may have a wholesome effect for the recovery of
Christian morals."7 Erasmus also set to work to compose
practical booklets on religion and worship. A " Modus conft-
tendi " he published in 1525 wras frequently reprinted later ; its
aim was to restore to honour the Sacrament of Penance so
maltreated by the innovators. At a later date he even composed
a sort of Catechism, the " Explanatio symboli " (1533).

1 Cp. Fel. Gess, " Akten imd Briefc zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog
Georgs," 1 p. 354.

2 To Spalatin, July 6, 1520, cp. Stahelin, " Theol. Realenzyklopadie,"
53, p. 442.

3 " Opp.," 3, col. (339 seq, 4 Ibid., col. 713, 742.

5 So, for instance, " Corp. ref.," 1, p. 698 (1525).

6 Ibid., p. 693. 7 " Opp.," 3, col. 826.

250 THE APOSTASY

" In Luther I find to my surprise two different persons,"
Erasmus wrote on March 13, 1526, to Bishop Michael of Langres.
" One writes in such a way that he seems to breathe the apostolic
spirit, the other makes use of such unbecoming invective as to
appear to be altogether unmindful of it."1 To another bishop, on
September 1, 1528, he writes : " Whatever of good there may be
in Luther's teaching and exhortations we shall put in practice,
not because it emanates from him, but because it is true and
agrees with Holy Scripture."2

He continued to scourge the abuses in ecclesiastical life and
to demand a reformation, but he did so in a fashion more
measured and dignified than formerly, so that well-disposed
Catholics for the most part agreed with him.

Owing to the new position he assumed, the Popes did not repel
him, but showed him favour and confidence. They were desirous
of retaining him and his enormous influence for the good of the
Church. A Spanish theologian, who had written an " Anta-
pologia " against Erasmus to reinforce the attack made upon him
by Prince Carpi, tells us that Clement VII, after glancing through
the work, said to him : " The Holy See has never set the seal of
its approbation on the spirit of Erasmus and his writings, but
it has spared him in order that he might not separate himself
from the Church and embrace the cause of Lutheranism to the
detriment of our interests."3 According to one account, Paul III
even wished to make him a cardinal ; Erasmus, however, refused
this dignity on account of his age.

Luther for his part was fond of saying, that he merely
spoke out plainly what Erasmus in his timidity only
ventured to hint at. He himself, he tells a correspondent,
had led the believing Christians into the Promised Land,
whereas Erasmus had conducted them only as far as the
land of Moab.4 He recognised, however, the great difference
between himself and Erasmus in their fundamental theo
logical views, for instance, as to the condition of man
stained by original sin, as to his free-will for doing what is
good, his justification and pardon, on all of which the
Humanist scholar held fast to the traditional teaching of the
Church because, so Luther says, he could not, or would
not, understand the Bible. Luther was well aware that, as
time went on, Erasmus frequently protested that he had

1 "Opp.," 3, col. 919. ~ Ibid., col. 1104.

3 loan. Genesius Sepulveda Cordubensis, " De rebus gestis Caroli
Quinti," in his " Opp.," 1 (Matriti, 1780), p. 468.

4 To Johann (Ecolampadius at Basle, June 20, 1523, " Brief -
wechsel," 4, p. 164 : " Forte et ipse [Erasmus] in campestribus Moab
morietur (Num. xxxvi. 13). . . . In terrain promissionis ducere noh potest
. . . ut qui vel non possit vcl non velit de Us [scripturis] recte iudicare."

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 251

never had any intention of writing anything contrary to the
revealed Word of God as taught by Holy Scripture and the
common faith of Christendom ; that he submitted himself
to the decisions of the Popes, that he was ready to accept,
as the Voice of God, what the authorities of the Church
taught, even though he might not understand the reasons,
and be personally inclined to embrace the opposite. His
standpoint was accordingly miles removed from that of
Luther with its unfettered freedom in religious matters.1

In one of his Apologies Erasmus states of his earlier writings —
in which, it is true he often goes too far— that " neither Lutherans
nor anti-Lutherans could clearly show him to have called into
question any single dogma of the Church ' ' ; though numbers had
tried hard to do so, they had merely succeeded in " bringing
forward affinities, congruities, grounds for scandal and suspicion,
and not a few big fibs."2 Concerning his tendency to scepticism
he says nothing.

Of the excessive zeal of certain critics he says in the same
passage : " Some theologians, in their hatred for Luther, condemn
good and pious sayings which do not emanate from us at all, but
from Christ and the Apostles. Thus, owing to their malice and
stupidity, many remain in the party adverse to the Church who
would otherwise have forsaken it, and many join it who would
otherwise have kept aloof." He himself was not to be drawn by
invective to embrace Luther's cause. He even ventures to
affirm that he was the first, who, almost singlehanded (" ipse
primus omnium ac pene solus restiti pullulanti malo "), opposed
Luther, and that he had proved a true prophet in predicting that
the play which the world had greeted with such warm applause
would have a sad termination. — He speaks more truly when he
seriously regrets having fanned the flames by his writings. Thus,
in 1521, he writes to Baron Mount joy : " Had I known before
hand that things would shape themselves so, I would either have
refrained from writing certain things, or have written them
differently."3

If Luther, after having met with strong opposition from
Erasmus, in place of the support he had anticipated, denounced

1 In his " Diatribe " against Luther, Erasmus likewise declares that
he submits himself in all to the authority of the Church. Cp. Job.
Walter's edition (" Quellenschriften zur Gesch. des Protestantismus,"
Hft., 8, 1910), p. 3. Later he wrote concerning his attitude to Catholic
dogma : " De his quce sunt ftdei, liberam habeo conscientiam apud Deum "
(" Opp.," 10, col. 1538).

2 To Christoph von Stadion, in the letter referred to above, p. 246, n. 1.
Even in 1520 and 1521 he says that he had been the first to condemn
the Wittenberg preaching because he had foreseen danger and disturb
ance. There, however, he dwells more on the detriment to learning.

3 " Si quis deus mihi prcedixisset, hoc sceculum exoriturum, quazdam
aui non scripsissem, aut aliter scripsissem " (" Opp.," 3, col. 681).

252 THE APOSTASY

him as an infidel Epicurean, he only demonstrated anew how far
passion and bitter disappointment could carry him.1 " Luther,"
says Kawerau, " when passing judgment on Erasmus, sees only
the dark side of his character, and this the more as years go by."
" In his writings, and even in his most harmless utterances,
Luther scents evil. In the contempt he pours upon him he is
often grossly unfair, and, as a whole, his judgment of him does
not do justice either to the greatness or the character of Erasmus." 2
Even where Luther does not actually attribute unbelief and
untruthfulness to his opponent he frequently goes too far in
blaming his sarcasm. He says, for instance, at a later date, that
Erasmus could do nothing but jeer ; that to refute or disprove
anything he was utterly unable. " If I were Papist I would
easily get the upper hand of him. ... By merely laughing at op
ponents no one will succeed in vanquishing them."3 He could see
in Erasmus only the idle cynic Lucian and nothing else. As early
as 1517 he declaims against the " Erasmic " habit of " making
fun of the faults and miseries of the Church of Christ instead of
bewailing them before God with deep sighs." It has, however,
been pointed out by a Protestant theologian that such serious
complaints concerning the disorders in the Church are not lacking
even in the earlier writings of Erasmus. 4

1 To quote here only one instance, Luther says (1544) in the " Tisch-
reden " of Mathesius, edited by Kroker, p. 343, that he desired that
the " Annotationes in Novum Testamentum" by Erasmus (a much-
esteemed and really epoch-making work) should not be further dis
seminated, " because it contains Epicureanism and other poison."
Erasmus had destroyed many " in body, soul, and spirit," and had
been an " originator of the ' Sakrameritirer ' " ; he had injured the
gospel as much as he had furthered the interests of learning. " He
was a terrible man, and Zwingli was led astray by him. Egranus
[Johann. Wildenauer of Eger, who forsook the A\7ittenberg teach
ing] he had also perverted, and he now believes just about as
much as Erasmus ; his end was " sine crux et sine lux." The latter
remark concerning Erasmus's death calls for explanation. Erasmus
arrived in August, 1535, in a weak state of health at Basle, a city
already despoiled of every vestige of Catholic worship — in order to
supervise the printing of his " Origenes " by the celebrated Basle
printers. His illness had been increasing since March, 1536, and in the
night of the llth to 12th July of that year he died unexpectedly and
without having received the sacraments. A fortnight before this, on
June 28, in a letter to a friend, Johann Goclen, he had expressed his
regret that he wras lying ill in a city dominated by the reformers. On
account of the difference in religion he would rather be summoned out
of this life elsewhere. " Ep.," 1299. " Opp.," 3, col. 1522.

2 Kawerau, ibid., p. 15. He, however, remarks concerning Eras
mus : " The instinct of self-preservation forced such admissions from
him." There is no reason for doubting the " veracity " of his state
ments in favour of the Catholic Church.

3 Cordatus, " Tagebucli," p. 287.

4 Job. v. Walter, " Das Wesen der Religion nach Erasmus und
Luther," 1906, p. 7. " That Erasmus set himself seriously to improve
matters is shown by his letters," thus A. Freitag in the Preface to the
" De servo arbitrio," Weim. ed., 18, p. 594, n. 3.

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 253

A severe but not unfair criticism of Erasmus — which docs
not charge him with unbelief or apostasy though censuring
him for other grave faults — is to be met with in two German
writers, both of them well conversant with their age, viz.
Kilian Leib, Prior of the monastery of Rebel orf, and Bl.
Peter Canisius.

The former, in dealing in his "Annales " with the year
1528, complains of the effect on the religious world of
the sceptical and critical manner of his contemporary.
" Wherever Erasmus had expressed a wish, or even merely
conveyed a hint, there Luther has broken in with all his
might."1 He is here referring to the strictures contained in
the Annotations of Erasmus on the New Testament, in
particular on Math, xi., upon the fasts and feasts, marriage
laws and practice of confession, on the heavy burden of
prayers, the number of Decretals and the endless ceremonial
rules.

The other, Peter Canisius, speaks of Erasmus in the
Preface to his edition of the Letters of St. Jerome. He says
that Erasmus is distinguished by the " fluency and richness
of his literary style " and his " rare and admirable eloquence."
In polite literature he had undoubtedly done good service,
but he should either have refrained from meddling with
theology or have treated it with more reserve and fairness.
No one before him had ventured to censure the Fathers, the
Schoolmen and the theologians in so severe and overbearing
a fashion, nor was one to be found more touchy when con
tradicted. " He has carried this so far that he is now made
as little of in the Catholic as in the opposite camp. In his
writings he paid more attention to the form than to the
matter." The following sentence is worthy of attention :
" I know not by what spirit he was really led, for he dealt
with the Church's doctrine according to the theology of
Pyrrhus [the sceptic]."2

1 "Annales" (ed. Aretin, " Beitrage zur Gesch. und Literatur," 9,
1807), p. 1018 : " Ubi Erasmus quippiam optat aut fieri velle innuit, ibi
Lutherus totis viribus irruit." Leib's " Briefwechsel und Diarien," an
important source for that period, J. Schlecht has edited in J. Greving £
" Reformationsgesch. Studien," Hft. 7.

2 The preface has been reprinted in O. Braunsberger, B. Petn
Canisii Epistulce et Acto," 3, 1901, p. 280 seq. The passage is on p. 283.
Cp. Janssen-Pastor, " Gesch. des deutschen Volkes," 218, p. 15, where
the work of Canisius, " De incomparabili vircjine Maria,
quoted.

254 THE APOSTASY

What, we may ask in this connection, was the origin of
the saying which became later so widely current : " Erasmus
laid the egg which Luther hatched " ?

It is first alluded to by Erasmus himself in 1523, where he
informs a friend that this had been said of him by certain
Franciscans ; he adds, that he had indeed laid a hen's egg,
but that Luther had hatched out quite a different nestling.1
In 1534 he speaks^more definitely of the German Franciscans
as the purveyors of this saying, and in particular of the
Cismontane commissioner of the Order, Nicholas Herborn,
who with the assistance of other Friars had caused a volume
of sermons to be printed at Antwerp in which appeared
"the favourite asseveration of the brethren," viz.: "Eras
mus is Luther's father ; he laid the eggs and Luther
hatched out the chicks ; Luther, Zwingli, (Ecolampadius
and Erasmus arc the soldiers of Pilate who crucified
Jesus."2

Similar utterances were indeed current in Catholic circles.
Canisius mentions that he had frequently heard a saying
which agrees with the words in Leib : " Ubi Erasmus innuit,
illic Lutherus irruit,"3 and might be rendered : Where
Erasmus merely indicated, Luther violently eradicated.
So general was the feeling that the head of the Humanists
had really paved the way for Luther's action.

As we have frequently pointed out, Luther's speedy and
unhoped-for success is altogether inexplicable, unless his
way had been prepared beforehand by others, and that
particular kind of Humanism which Erasmus had been
largely instrumental in furthering cannot but be regarded

1 In the letter of Erasmus to the Lutheran Johann Casarius,
December 1C, 1523 : " Ego peperi ovum, Lutherus exclusit, mirum
dictum minoritarum istorum magnaque et bona pulte dignum." " Opp.,"
3, col. 840.

2 To Sinapius, July 31, 1534, in R. Stahelin, " Brief e aus der
Reformationszeit," " Programm," Basle, 1887, p. 24 : The " proverbia
d5e\0t/cd," to use the term of Erasmus, runs : " Erasmus est pater
Lutheri ; Erasmus posuit ova, Lutherus exclusit pullos : Lutherus,
Zwinglius, (Ecolampadius et Erasmus sunt milites Pilati, qui crucifix-
erunt lesum." Similar accusations, he adds, were heard also in other
quarters. The Spanish theologian, L. Carvajal, remarks (1528) in his
"Apologia diluens nugas Erasmi in sacras religiones," that the Ger
mans said of Erasmus : " Erasmus peperit ova, Lutherus exclusit
pullos" Ed. Cracow, 1540, Fol. C 1 a. The author was very angry
with Erasmus on account of his calumnies against religious : " Utinam
Lutherus mentiatur, qui te [Erasm.um] atheon dicit." Fol. E 3a.

3 In Preface referred to above, p. 253, n. 2.

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 255

as one of the causes which contributed to the spread of
Lutheranism.

It is true that Humanism in some regards presented an
inspiring and attractive spectacle. The revival of classical
learning, the union of which with Christian truth had been
the original aim both of the Humanists and of the Church,
who had encouraged them ; the idea of liberty and of the
rights of the individual ; the criticism and revision of
ecclesiastical studies ; all this, within due limits, seemed to
presage a spring-tide in the development of the Christian
nations at the close of the Middle Ages. The sanguine
dreamt of a happy amalgamation of the ancient faith with
the new culture of an age which was striving mightily
upwards in all that concerned citizenship. Yet even
enthusiastic patrons of the Christian Humanism of the day
could not praise all the ideas current among those of its
representatives who looked up to Erasmus ; in such
quarters many were the grievances raised against the
Church, it being urged that religion had been corrupted, and
that a purer Christianity should be established on the model
of the earlier ages, and minus the mediaeval errors. Ideas
such as these were distinctly revolutionary, especially when
they had taken root in the heads of the masses in an even
worse form. " It cannot as a matter of fact be denied,"
says the French Academician P. Imbart dc la Tour, '* that
the Humanists by their mode of criticising, accelerated the
gathering of the revolutionary storm-clouds of the sixteenth
century."1

1 " Origines de la reforme," 2, Paris, 1909, p. 439, whence what
precedes is also taken. The author's opinion here quoted is the more
remarkable owing to the fact, that in this chapter on " Christian
Humanism," he unduly magnifies both it and its followers, for in
stance, Erasmus. He writes on p. 441 : " Presque partout 1'hu-
manisme se montrera 1'adversaire du mouvement (de Luther) dont
il sera la premiere victime. C'est qu'entre le principe fondamental
de la reforme et celui de 1'humanisme il y a un abime. Ce dernier
n'entendait pas seulement rester catholique, il 1'etait, et par sa sou-
mission a 1'unite exterieure et par sa doctrine de la liberte, et par un
esprit d'equilibre et de mesure si conforme aux habitudes de pensee
et de vie du catholicisme." The first sentence, to dwell only upon this,
makes out the opposition of Humanism to the Reformation to have
been far more general than wras the case, and speaks inaccurately of
Humanism as its first victim. The first victim was the Catholic faith
and practice throughout a large part of Europe, for the preservation
of which the Humanists failed to show sufficient zeal. It is true that
they met with a bitter retribution for their share in paving the way

256 THE APOSTASY

It was in the nature of an expiation that, along with
Erasmus, many like-minded Humanists, following the
example of their leader, deserted Luther's cause, as soon as
the air had been cleared by the master's work against
Luther and the denial of free-will. At the head of the
German Humanists, Mutian, now an old man, welcomed the
defence of free-will embodied in the " Diatribe."1 Zasius
and Crotus, like Pirkhcimer, returned to the Church.
Others, especially those of Erfurt, were not to be separated
from Luther, such were Justus Jonas, Johann Lang, Adam
Kraft, Euricius Cordus, Draconites, Camcrarius, Menius
and Eobanus Hessus, who, however, wavered long.2

Summing up all that has been said, we must discount
both the exaggerated charges brought against Erasmus,
and the one-sided eulogies lavished upon him. A type of
the unfair critic was Hieronymus Aleander, who was chiefly
responsible for the violent attack made on Erasmus by
Prince Albert Pius of Carpi. In 1521 Aleander declared :
" Erasmus has written worse things against the faith than
Luther " ; he is of opinion that Erasmus had preached a real
" intellectual revolt in Flanders and the Rhine-Lands."3
Equally exaggerated in the opposite direction is the state
ment ascribed to the Emperor Charles V, which must have
been due to the glowing accounts given by the admirers of
Erasmus, viz. that Erasmus had greatly reduced the number
of Lutherans and achieved what Emperors, Popes, Princes

for the catastrophe, in the destruction of much they had done which
perished in the storm which submerged scholarship. Erasmus twice
asserts his conviction : " Ubicunque regnal Luther anismus, ibi lit-
terarum est interitus " (" Opp.," 3, col. 1139 ; 10, col. 1618), and often
repeats the same in other words. See present work, vol. v.,
xxxv. 3.

1 K. Gillert, " Brief wechsel des Konrad Mutianus," Halle, 1890,
p. 300.

2 Cp. G. Kawerau in W. Moller, "Lehrbuch der Kirchengesch.,"
33, 1907, p. 63.

3 From Aleander's account in Balan, " Monumenta ref. Luth.,"
p. 100 (cp. pp. 55, 79, 81) ; cp. Janssen, " Hist, of the German People "
(Engl. trans.), 3, p. 16. Erasmus, in the above letter, dated August 26,
1528, and addressed to Christoph v. Stadion, describes Aleander
and his intimate friend the Prince of Carpi as the originators of the
charge, that, by his denial of dogma, he had been the cause of Luther-
anism : " Cuius vanissimi rumoris prcecipuus auctor fuit Hieronymus
Aleander, homo, ut nihil aliud dicam, non superstitiose verax. Eiusdem
sententice videtur Albertus Carporum princeps, Aleandro iunctissimus
magisque simillimus,"

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 257

and Universities had previously striven to do, but in vain.
The allusion would seem to be to the great Humanist's
work against Luther's denial of free-will.

What has been said tends to place in a true light a certain
view which has been put forward in modern days. Thanks
to a wrong interpretation of his antagonism to Luther's
principles and of his criticism of Catholic doctrine and
practice, an attempt has been made to represent him as the
" father of religious universalism " and of religion minus
dogma. His bold schemes for renovation it is said paved
the way for a great " renascence of Christianity " towards
which we might well strive even to-day. As a matter of
fact this " original creator in the domain of religion," this
" spokesman of modern religion," never existed in Erasmus.
It is a mere figment of the imagination of those who desire
the complete reformation of religion and seek to shelter
themselves behind the great Humanist. What is really
strange is that such a deformation of the Erasmus of
history has been attempted by certain Protestant theo
logians, whereas in Luther's day Erasmus was denounced
by Protestants as a free-thinker and unbeliever. There are
other Protestant theologians, however, who candidly admit
the futility of such efforts with regard to Erasmus.1

Catholics can see easily enough why the rise of Protestant
ism tended to bring back many Humanists, among them
Erasmus himself, to a firmer and more clearly denned
religious standpoint and to a more whole-hearted support of
the Church. Erasmus, as stated above, frequently spoke of
Luther's work as a " remedy " (p. 249). It was a remedy
above all for himself and for the more serious elements among
his own party, whom the sight of the outward effects and
internal consequences of the new teaching served to with
draw from the abyss towards which they were hurrying.

In his Annotations on the New Testament, Erasmus had
clearly expressed both his fundamental antagonism to
Luther's denial of free-will and his own position. It so
happens that the contrast between Luther and Erasmus

1 Hermelink, " Die religiosen Reformbestrebungen des deutschen
JIumanismus," Tubingen, 1908. We may also mention here that
Joh. v. Walter, in his edition of the " Diatribe" p. xxiii., criticises
Zickendraht (" Der Streit zwischen Erasmus und Luther," etc., see
below), " who lays too much stress on the sceptical utterances of
Erasmus [in the ' Diatribe ']."

258 THE APOSTASY

becomes apparent for the first time in Luther's correspond
ence of the famous year 1517. Luther had at that time
been devoting some attention to his future opponent's
interpretation of Romans ix., of which the Avords con
cerning Divine election had confirmed him in his false teach
ing, while supplying Erasmus with an opportunity to lay
stress on the freedom of the will under the influence of grace.
The Wittenberg professor, full of the spirit of his recently
completed Commentary on Romans, had, during his reading
of it, written to his friend Lang concerning Erasmus in
words which seem to presage the coming encounter : "I am
reading our Erasmus, but every day" he pleases me less.
That he should so boldly attack the religious and the clergy
for their ignorance pleases me, but I fear he does not
sufficiently vindicate the rights of Christ and the grace of
God. . . . How different is the judgment of the man who
concedes something to free-will from one who knows nothing
besides grace ! 5?1 — In these words we hear, as it were, the
distant muttering of the storm which broke out seven years
later, when the two exchanged their thunderbolts, clearing
the air and plainly disclosing the difference between the
Catholic and the Lutheran standpoint.

When a report reached Luther in 1522 that Erasmus was
about to oppose his teaching on free-will, he was carried
away to say certain things in his letters which greatly
provoked his opponent.

In a letter to the Leipzig Professor, Caspar Borner, he stated
that Erasmus understood less about these matters than the
schools of the Sophists (the Schoolmen). " I have no fear of
being vanquished so long as I do not alter my opinion."2 " Truth
is stronger than eloquence, the spirit mightier than talent, faith
greater than learning " ; with his habitual confidence he says
that were he only to stammer forth the truth he would still be
sure of vanquishing the eloquence even of far-famed Erasmus.
He did not wish to vex the scholar, but should he dare to attack
he would be made to see " that Christ fears neither the gates of
hell nor the powers of the air " ; he (Luther) well knew the
thoughts of Satan (" quandoquidem et Satance cogitationes
noverimus").3 Hence he seems to have regarded the doctrine of

1 On March 1, 1517, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 88. See present work,
vol. i., p. 43.

2 " Neque est ut timeam casurum me, nisi mutem sententiam,"

3 On May 28, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 375.

ERASMUS AND LUTHER 259

the absence of free-will as a sort of revelation, which the devil
must necessarily oppose.

Erasmus got to hear of this letter. With the expressions it
contained, viz. : spirit, truth, faith, triumph of Christ, he was
familiar, for they were Luther's watchwords ; the innovators,
following Luther's example, made use of them, in season and out
of season, though they were not able to conceal their real nature,
least of all from the sharp eyes of Erasmus. " All," Erasmus
wrote in 1524 to Theodore Hezius, " have these five words
always on their lips : evangel, God's Word, faith, Christ and
Spirit, and yet I see many behave so that I cannot doubt them
to be possessed by the devil."1

After long delay and anxious consideration, Erasmus finally
decided to comply with the requests made of him and to publish
a polemical work against Luther on the subject of free-will,
for his own vindication and for the enlightenment of many whose
eyes were turned upon him. In 1523 he set to work and for
warded a rough draft to Henry VIII of England.

He has frequently been said to have declared, in his witty
way, that he had only yielded against his will to strong
persuasion and that the work had been wrung from him ; that,
writing of free-will, he had lost his own free-will, and was, there
fore, not to be taken seriously. This legend rests upon a false
interpretation of a passage, the text of Erasmus containing
nothing of the sort.2

In order if possible to delay or parry the attack, Luther, about
the middle of 1524, wrote a strange letter addressed to the
scholar.3 He there complains openly of the criticisms Erasmus
had directed against him latterly and of his ostensibly insulting
remarks, and informs him that he, the Wittenberg Professor, has
nothing whatever to fear, " even though an Erasmus should fall
on him tooth and nail ; " at the same time he begs him, with a
most flattering eulogy of his gifts and standing, to consider well
whether it would not be better to leave his (Luther's) doctrines
alone (" intacta dimittere "), and to busy himself with his own
Humanist affairs. " I desire that the Lord may bestow on you
a spirit worthy of your name. Should the Lord, however, still

1 " Opp.," 3, col. 809.

2 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 656 f. In the note on p. 790 it is pointed
out that the passage in question does not refer to any work by Erasmus.
A. Freitag, in the introduction to his reprint of the book, " De servo
arbitrio," Weim. ed., 18, p. 577, says : " The words of Erasmus, in his
letter to L. Vives on Ascension Day, 1527 : ' perdidimus liberum
arbitrium,' do not refer to the work, ' De libero arbitrio.' " The
jesting words used by Erasmus in a letter to Auerbach, dated Decem
ber 10, 1524, which have also been quoted in support of the legend
(" Profecto nunc habere desii liberum arbitrium, posteaquam emisi in
vulgus "), only mean that, even had he so desired, it was now impossible
to withdraw a book already published. He wrote in exactly the same
sense to King Henry VIII on September 6, 1524 : " iacta est alea, exiit
in lucem libellus de libero arbitrio."

3 " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 319, " about April 15," 1524.

260 THE APOSTASY

delay this gift, I would beg you meanwhile, if you can do nothing
else, at least to remain a mere spectator of our tragedy ; do not
write against me or increase the number and strength of my
opponents ; particularly do not attack me through the press,
and I for my part shall also refrain from attacking you." The
writer was all too well aware how heavily the words of Erasmus
would weigh down the scale against him in public opinion.

Erasmus, however, was not to be moved from his decision ;
indeed, he felt still further provoked to write by an allusion of
Luther's in the above letter to the kindness he had hitherto
displayed towards godless and hypocritical foes ; should Erasmus
dare to come forward against him publicly Luther vows he will
alter this tone.1 In the latter event Luther, in another passage
of the letter, had declared regretfully, in perfect accordance with
his theory of grace and the absence of free-will, that " Erasmus
had not yet received from the Lord the gift of strength and an
inward mind," which would have enabled him to ally himself
freely and trustfully with him (Luther) in his struggle with the
monsters who were attacking him ; even from Erasmus one could
not expect what was beyond his power and lay outside his
way. " On the contrary, we have accepted with patience and
respect your weakness and the limitation of God's gift in
you."

We may perhaps be permitted to remark here concerning the
absence of the Divine action on the will, that Luther on other
occasions did not allow himself to be swayed by " patience and
respect," as in the case of Erasmus, least of all when dealing with
the Pope and his supporters. On the contrary, he reproves them
severely for their " terrible blindness " and says, that the wrath
of God had led to the setting up of an empire of error and lying,
in spite of the Church having been so often warned by Christ and
the Apostles against the Pope, i.e. Antichrist. The only explana
tion was in 2 Thessalonians ii. 10 : " Therefore God sent
upon them the operation of error, to believe lying"; "this
operation was so great (' ilia energia tarn potens fuit ') that
they were blind even to the worst errors " ; thus it was that
they had set up their horrid Papacy. Out upon you, he cries
to those, who, on the Lutheran hypothesis, were unable to do
otherwise, " the overwhelming effect of your delusion defies all
opposition " (" ilia efficacia erroris potentissime restitit "). " But
I have attacked the Pope in his very marrow and teaching, not
merely his abuses." " Had I not brought about his downfall by

1 " Ceterum dementia et mansuetudo mea erga peccatores et impios,
quantumvis insanos et iniquos, arbitror, non modo teste mea conscientia,
sed et multorum experientia, satis testata sit. Sic hactenus stilum cohibui,
utcunque, pungeres me, cohibiturum etiatn scripsi in literis ad amicos, quce
tibi quoque lectce sunt, donee palam prodires. Nam utcunque non nobis-
cum sapias et pleraque pietatis capita vel impie vel simulanter damnes
aut suspendas, pertinaciam tamen tibi tribuere non possum neque volo "
(p. 320 f.). Cp. Erasmus to Melanchthon, September 6, 1524, " Corp.
ref.," 1, p. 672.

ERASMUS ON FREE-WILL 261

means of the Word, the devil himself would have vomited him
forth."1

The work of Erasmus, " De liber o arbitrio diatribe," which
appeared in that same year, 1524, at Basle, was a severe
blow to Luther. *

The ground chosen by Erasmus in his long-expected
reply to all the questions raised by the Reformers, viz.
the matter of free-will, was singularly apt ; he launched
forth at once into one of the most important subjects, one,
too, which was readily understood by the people. His task
was the exposure of the religion of the enslaved will.

Though the author was not thoroughly conversant with
the learning of the Schoolmen, which might perhaps have
enabled him to place the relationship between grace and
free-will in an even clearer light, and though in the work he
is rather reserved, yet his refinement of judgment and his
eloquence more than compensate for his defects ; these
at least insured him great applause in an age so favourable
to Humanism. Even the theologians were, on the whole,
satisfied with the scriptural proofs adduced by so learned a
man, whose linguistic knowledge and exegetical skill gave
all the more weight to his work. Many cultured laymen
breathed more freely, as though relieved of a heavy burden,
when the authoritative voice of the great scholar was at
last raised against Luther and in defence of free-will, that
basic truth of sane human reason and pillar of all religious
belief.

Ulrich Zasius, the Freiburg-im-Breisgau lawyer, who had
hitherto been hesitating, wrote in enthusiastic praise of the
work to Boniface Amerbach.3 Duke George of Saxony expressed
his thanks to the author in a letter, with the honest and not
altogether unwarranted remark : " Had you come to your
present decision three years ago, and withstood Luther's shameful
heresies in writing instead of merely opposing him secretly, as
though you were not willing to do him much harm, the flames
would not have extended so far and we should not now find our-

1 Mathesius, " Tischreden " (Kroker), p. 404, said in 1537,
March 21-28.

2 In the Leyden edition (Lugd. Batav.), 9, col. 1215-48. In
German in Walch's edition of Luther's Works, 18, p. 1962 seq. New
critical edition with introduction by Joh. v. Walter in the " Quellen-
schriften zur Gesch. des Protestantismus," No. 8, Leipzig, 1910.

3 " Epp.," ed. Riegger, cp. 45. Cp. Enders, " Luthers Brief-
wechsel," 5, p. 47.

262 THE APOSTASY

selves in the distressing present state of things."1 The modera
tion with which the champion of free-will wrote, was com
mended even by Melanchthon in a letter to Erasmus (" perplacuit
tua moderatio ").z With this, other critics, Martin Lipsius for
instance, agreed.3

Luther was forced unwillingly to admit the kindness displayed
by Erasmus, but the fact that the keen intellect of his opponent
should have singled out for animadversion the most vital point
of his teaching, as he termed it, was very bitter to him. The
question dealt with, he said, certainly constituted the central
point of the quarrel ; it is absolutely essential that we should
know what and how much we are capable of in our relations to
God, otherwise we remain ignorant of God's work, nay, of God
Himself, and are unable to honour, to thank, or to serve Him.4
Luther accordingly admitted, concerning Erasmus's work —
and this he was in his own way anxious to see regarded as it
deserved — that the author, unlike his previous opponents, " had
seized upon the real question at issue, the 'summa causoz '" ; he had
not scolded him on the Papacy, indulgences and similar subjects,
but had hit upon the cardinal point, and held the knife at his
(Luther's) throat. God had not, however, yet bestowed upon
Erasmus the grace which would have fitted him to deal with the
controversy. " God has not so willed nor given it ; perhaps He
may bestow it later and make this opponent capable of defending
my doctrine more efficaciously than I can myself, seeing he is so
far beyond me in all other things [especially in worldly learning]."
These words, so remarkable from the psychological standpoint,
are to be found in Luther's reply. 5

In his " Diatribe " Erasmus dwelt with emphasis and success
on the fact that, according to Luther, not merely every good,
but also every evil must be referred to God ; this was in contra
diction with the nature of God and was excluded by His holiness.
According to Luther, God inflicted eternal damnation on sinners,
whereas they, in so far as they were not free agents, could not be
held responsible for their sins ; what Luther had advanced
demanded that God should act contrary to His eternal Goodness
and Mercy ; it would also follow that earthly laws and penalties
were superfluous, because without free-will no one could be

1 Db'llinger, "Die Reformation," 1, p. 7.

2 On September 30, 1524. " Corp. ref.," 1, p. 675. Cp. Enders,
5, p. 46. 3 Enders, 5, p. 47.

4 In the Introduction to the work, " De servo arbitrio," Weim. ed.,
18, p. 614 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, p. 131 seq., we read : " An
voluntas aliquid vel nihil agat in Us quce pertinent ad salutem . . . hie
est cardo nostrce disputationis, hie versatur status causce huius. Nam
hoc animus," etc. " Hoc problema esse partem alter am totius summce
christianarum rerum," etc. " Alter a pars summce Christianas est nosse,
an Deus contingentur aliquid prcesciat, et an omnia faciamus necessi
tate."

5 At the close of the work mentioned in the previous note, p. 786 =
367 : " Unus tu et solus cardinem rerum vidisti et ipsum iugulum
petisti."

ERASMUS ON FREE-WILL 263

responsible ; finally, the doctrine involved the overthrow of the
whole moral order.

The scriptural passages bearing on the question, more par
ticularly those appealed to by Luther in his "Assertio," are
examined with philological exactitude and with sobriety.

" Erasmus, in defending free-will," writes A. Taube, a Protes
tant theologian, " fights for responsibility, duty, guilt and
repentance, ideas which are essential to Christian piety. He
vindicates the capacity of the natural man for salvation, without
which the identity between the old and the new man cannot be
maintained, and without which the new life imparted by God's
grace ceases to be a result of moral effort and becomes rather the
last term of a magical process. He combats the fatalism which is
incompatible with Christian piety and which Luther contrived to
avoid only by his want of logic : ho vindicates the moral character
of the Christian religion, to which, from the standpoint of
Luther's theology, it was impossible to do justice."1

The work of Erasmus reached Wittenberg in September,
1524. Luther treated it with contempt and ostentatiously
repudiated it. He wrote to Spalatin, on November 1, that it
disgusted him ; he had been able to read only two pages of
it ; it was tedious to him to reply to so unlearned a book
by so learned a man.2 All the same, he did write a lengthy
and detailed answer ; that he delayed doing so until
late in the following year is to be accounted for by the
Peasant- War with its terrors, which entirely engrossed his
attention ; it was also the year of his marriage. In esti
mating the value of the reply, upon which he then set to
work with great energy, we must bear in mind the state of
the author and the inward and outward experiences through
which he had just gone. The impression made on his mind
by the events of those days has left its stamp in the even
more than usually extreme utterances contained in his
reply to Erasmus. When once he had begun the work he
carried it to its end with a rush ; he himself admits that it

1 A Taube, " Luthers Lehre iiber die Freiheit ... bis zum Jahro
1525," Gottingen, 1901, p. 46. It is true that the author declares
on the same page : " Because and in so far as Luther was moved to his
denial by his refusal to admit of merit and by his doctrine of the
assurance of salvation, every evangelical theologian will agree with
him • the admission of a system of salary between God and man is the
death of evangelical piety ; but belief in free-will does not necessarily
lead to this." Free-will, he declares, is, on the contrary, quite com
patible with the "sola fides:' On p. 45 he had said: Luther a
theolooy ends in contradictions which can only be obviated by tlie
assumption of free-will and by a positive recognition of the powers <
the natural man." 2 " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 46.

264 THE APOSTASY

was composed in excessive haste. We also know to whose
influence his final decision to take the work in hand was due,
viz. to Catherine Bora. " It was only at her request " that
he undertook the work, when she pointed out to him, " that
his foes might see in his obstinate silence an admission of
defeat."1

Luther's Book " On the Enslaved Will " against Erasmus
The title " De servo arbitrio," " On the enslaved will," was
borrowed by Luther from a misunderstood saying of
St. Augustine's.2 While the book which bears it was still in
the press his friend Jonas commenced a German version
and entitled it : " Dass der freic Wille nichts sei."3

However grotesque and exaggerated some of the principal
theses of the famous work, Luther was at pains to declare
therein that they were the result of most careful delibera
tion and were not written in the heat of controversy. Hence,
as a Protestant historian says, " we must not seek to hide or
explain them away, as was soon done by Luther's followers
and has been attempted even in our own day."4 Another
Protestant scholar, in the preface to his study on the work
" De servo arbitrio," remarks that " quite rightly it caused
great scandal and wonder," and goes on to point out that
" the hard, offensive theory " which it champions was "no
mere result of haste or of annoyance with Erasmus, coupled
with the desire clearly to define his own position with
regard to the latter," but really " expresses the matured
conviction of the Reformer."5

In this lengthy, badly arranged and rather confused work

1 E. Kroker, " Katherina Bora," Leipzig, 1906, p. 280 f. " Ipsa
supplicante scripsi" Mathesius, " Tischreden," p. 146.

2 See present work, vol. i., p. 204.

3 The Latin text in " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, p. 113-368, and (with
only unimportant differences) in the Weim. ed., 18, p. 600-787. A
new German translation with introduction and explanations by
O. Scheel, in "Luthers Werke," ed. Buchwald, etc., sup. vol ii Berlin
1905, p. 203 ff.

4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 663 f. This work of Luther's " was
a stumbling-block to his followers, and attempts were made to explain
it away by all the arts of violent exegesis ; cp. Walch (in his edition
of Luther's works), 18, Introduction, p. 140 ff." Kawerau in W.
Moller, " Lehrbuch der Kirchengesch.," 33, 1907, p. 63.

5 F. Kattenbusch, " Luthers Lehre vom unfreien Willen und von
der Predestination," Gottingen, 1875 (Anastatischer Neudruck,
Gottingen, 1905). Many Protestant theologians have recently de-

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 265

we see, first, that Luther gives the widest limits to his
denial of free-will and declares man to be absolutely devoid
of freedom of choice, even in the performance of works not
connected with salvation, and moral acts generally. He does,
indeed, casually remark that man is free " in inferioribus,"
and that the question is whether he also possesses free-will
in respect of God (" an erga Deum habeat liberum arbitrium").1
" But it is doubtful whether we are to take Luther at his
word." For " as a matter of fact he shows clearly enough
that he does not wish this limitation to be taken literally."2
'' That his intentions are, on the contrary, of the most
radical character, is plain from many other passages where
he attacks free-will everywhere, and represents all that we
do and everything that occurs (' omnia quce facimus et
omnia quce fiunt'), as taking place in accordance with
inexorable necessity."3 He lays it down as a principle that
God's omnipotence excludes all choice on man's part, and
again supports this on an argument from the Divine
omniscience ; God from all eternity sees all things, even
the most insignificant, by virtue of His prescience, hence
they must happen. Even where God acts on man apart from
the influence of grace (" citra gratiam spiritus "), according
to Luther, it is He Who works all in all, as the Apostle says,
" even in the impious." " All that He has made, He moves,
impels and urges forward (' movet, agit, rapit ') with the
force of His omnipotence which none can escape or alter;

fended, with renewed enthusiasm, Luther's standpoint in the book
" De servo arbitrio," under the impression that it places man in the
true state of subserviency to God and thus forms the basis of true
religion. See below.

1 " De servo arbitrio," " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 781 ; " Opp.
Lat. var.," 7, p. 359. Cp. ibid., p. 638 = 160 : at most " in inferioribus
sciat [homo'], sese in suis facultatibus et possessionibus habere ius utendi,
faciendi, omittcndi pro libero arbitrio, licet et idipsum rec/atur solius Dei
libero arbitrio, quocunque illi placuerit." Taube (see p. 228, n. 2), p. 21,
remarks, like Kattenbusch (above p. 264, n. 5), p. 48, that such
degradation of free-will, even "m inferioribus," is to be found in
Luther's earlier writings.

2 Kattenbusch, p. 7 f.

3 " De servo arbitrio," p. 615=134 : " Ex quo sequitur irrefragabili-
ter : Omnia quce facimus, omnia quce fiunt, etsi nobis videntur muta-
biliter et contingenter fieri, revera tamen fiunt necessario, si Dei voluntatem
species. Voluntas enim Dei efficax est," etc. In the Jena Latin edition of
Luther, 3 (1567), this passage has been watered down. Cp. also
p. 615 = 133 : " Deus nihil prcescit contingenter, sed omnia incommut-
abili et ceterna infallibiliquc voluntate et prcevidet et proponit et facit,"
p. 670 = 200 : " Omnia quce fiunt (sunt) merce necessitatis."

266 THE APOSTASY

all must yield compliance and obedience according to the
nature of the power conferred on them by God."1

In the same way as he here speaks of a certain " power "
in the creature, so also, in the same connection, he refers to
" our co-operation " in the universal action of God (" et nos ei
cooperaremur "). By this, however, he does not mean any
real free co-operation but, as he says darkly, only an activity
of the will corresponding to its nature and governed by law,
" whether in submission to the universal omnipotence of
God in matters which do not refer to His Kingdom, or under
the special impulse of His Spirit [grace] within His Kingdom."

Luther's main object in the book " De servo arbitrio " is
undoubtedly the vindication of religious determinism.

His denial of free-will had its root in his mistaken con
viction that man was entirely passive in the matter of his
salvation and in his attempt to destroy all personal merit,
even that won by the help of grace, as at variance with the
merit of Jesus Christ. He is fond of dwelling with emphasis
on the absence of any co-operation on man's part in his
justification, which is effected by faith alone, and on the
so-called " righteousness " which had been effected in man
by God alone even previous to man's choice. Even that free
will for doing what is good, which is given back to the man
who is justified, does not strictly co-operate — lest the merit
of Christ should suffer.

" This, then, is what we assert : Man neither does nor attempts
anything whatever in preparation for his regeneration by justi
fication or for the Kingdom of the Spirit, nor does he afterwards
do or attempt anything in order to remain in this Kingdom, but
both are the work of the Spirit in us, Who, without any effort on
our part, creates us anew and preserves us in this state. ... It
is He Who preaches through us, Who takes pity upon the needy
and comforts the sorrowful. But what part is there here for free
will to play ? What is left for it to do ? — Nothing, absolutely
nothing."2

Here we have a renewal of the attack on his old bugbear, self-

1 " De servo arbitrio," p. 753 = 317 : " Deus omnla, quoe condidit solus,
solus quoque movet, agit et rapit, omnipotentice suce motu, quern ilia non
possunt vitare nee mutare, sed necessario sequuntur et parent." Cp. p.
747 = 308 : God works upon the will with His " actuosissima operatio,
quam vitare vel mutare non possumus, sed qua (homo) tale velle habet
necessario, quale illi Deus dedit, et quale rapit suo motu. . . . Eapitur
omnium voluntas, ut velit et faciat, sive sit bona sive mala"

2 Ibid., p. 754 = 317, 318. Luther here shows a quite enigmatical
want of comprehension for Erasmus's exposition of the ancient Catholic
doctrine concerning the co-operation of the will with grace.

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 267

righteousness, his dislike of which leads him to universal
determinism ; from his mechanical doctrine of faith alone it was
merely a step to this mechanical view of everything.

We can only marvel at the ease with which, in his zeal for the
supposed glory of the Saviour, he closes his eyes to the devasta
tion which such teaching must work in the spiritual domain.
He declares that he is not in the least afraid of the consequences.
He fancies he has at last placed the whole motive force of human
action in its true light and estimated it at its real value. For
"it is above all else necessary and wholesome for the Christian
to know that God foresees nothing conditionally, but that He
knows all things beforehand unconditionally, determines them
and carries them out by His unchangeable, eternal and infallible
Will."1 He builds up piety, humility and all consolation on the
basis of this abnegation of the will. " Christian faith," he says,
would be " altogether destroyed, God's promises and the whole
gospel would be trodden under foot were we not to believe in
God's indispensable fore-knowledge and that all happens through
necessity ; on the other hand, the greatest and only consolation
for Christians in the trials they encounter is to know, that God
does not lie but invariably performs all things, that there is no
resisting His will and no possibility of change or hindrance."2
Herein, according to him, lies " the only possibility of leading
man to entire self-abnegation, and to perfect humility towards
God." Therefore " this truth must be proclaimed aloud, every
where arid at all times " ; here, as in the service of the Word in
general, any prosopolepsia, topolepsia, tropolepsia, or ko&nolepsia
is pernicious and damnable. The Protestant theologian from
whom the last sentences are taken remarks : ' ' We have here a
peculiar form of piety, and it may remain an open question whether
the same is to be judged pathologically or not."3

Luther seems to ignore — if indeed he ever was acquainted with
them — the reliable solutions to the problem of the Divine
prescience and omnipotence in relation to human free-will,
furnished both by philosophy and by theology from the times of
the Fathers. He dismisses with utter contempt the distinctions
and definitions of the greatest theologians of earlier ages.

On the other hand, he turns upon Erasmus and the theology
of the Church with the formal charge : '" You have denied God
Himself by taking away faith in Him and fear of Him, you have
shaken all God's promises and menaces." Without being clearly
conscious of the fact, he is actually changing the true idea of
God and seeking to set up a Being, who governs with the blind
force of fate, in the stead of a God Who rules with wisdom, con
trolling His own power and restraining Himself with goodness
and condescension.4 Free-will, he says, belongs to God alone,
Who alone is able to do what He wills in heaven and on earth.

1 " De servo arbitrio," p. 615 = 133.

2 Ibid., p. 619 = 138. 3 Taube, p. 19 f.

4 " De servo arbitrlo" " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 636 ; " Opp.
Lat. var.," 7, p. 158.

268 THE APOSTASY

How the ideas of free-will and of God are treated in
Luther's " De servo arbitrio" is made still more plain from
the conclusions which he draws in this work from the
denial of free-will, and deals with without the slightest
reserve.

The first consequence is the absolute predestination of
the reprobate to hell.

Luther here throws to the winds the will of God Almighty for
the salvation of all men, and he does so, with regard to those
who are delivered over to eternal death, with a precision which
is quite shocking. They were incapable of being saved because
God did not so will it. Owing to the reprobate, God has " an
' OBternum odium erga homines,' not merely a hatred of the
demerits and works of free-will, but a hatred which existed even
before the world was made."1 Hence He inflicts eternal punish
ment upon those who do not deserve it (" immeritos damnat ").2
And if sinners are thereby confirmed in their sins instead of being
converted, this does not matter in the least, for the Spirit of God
will nevertheless, in due season, lay hold of the elect and change
them into children of God (" electi tamen manebunt ").3

The severity of his doctrine does not here differ in any way
from Calvin's cruel views, though, as the fact is less generally
known, Luther's name has not been so closely associated with
predestination to hell as Calvin's. Luther's doctrine on this
matter did not come so much to the front as that of Calvin,
because, unlike the latter, he did not make capital out of it by
means of popular and practical exhortations, and because the
early Lutherans, under the influence of Melanchthon, who
became an opponent of the rigid denial of free-Mail and of Luther's
views on predestination, soon came to soften their master's hard
sayings. Yet there can be no doubt that the book " De servo
arbitrio " does contain such teaching quite definitely expressed.

The decree according to which God from all eternity condemns
irrevocably to hell a great part of mankind, is, however, accord
ing to Luther, His " Secret Will " which we cannot investigate.
With this His " Revealed Will " docs not coincide. This distinc
tion becomes a pet one of Luther's, by means of which he fancies
he can escape the embarrassment in which the many passages of
the Bible concerning God's desire that all men be saved, involve
him. The " voluntas occulta et metuenda " of the " Deus maies-
tatis " determines man's fate irrevocably ; upon this we must
not speculate, for it is beyond human investigation. We must,
on the contrary, according to Luther, not go beyond the "voluntas
Dei revelata " — which he also speaks of elsewhere as the " voluntas
prcedicata et oblata," or " voluntas beneplaciti " — which, it is true,

1 " De servo arbitrio," 1, p. 724 seq.^216. 2 Ibid., p. 730 = 284.
3 Ibid., p. 'Jl2scq. = 259seq. : cp. p. 627-629 seq. = 147, 150 seq. :
Kattenbusch, ibid., p. 12.

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 269

strives after the salvation of all men and the removal of sin.1
" From this we must conclude that God, as He is preached, is
not in every instance the same as He Who actually works, and
that in some cases in His revelation He says what is quite
untrue."2

Thus the author is no longer content to place another meaning
upon the biblical statements concerning God's will that all men
be saved, as he did in the "Assertio,"3 though even in the " De
servo arbitrio " he still " attempts to place a different interpreta
tion upon the passages of Scripture in .question and to explain
away by a desperate exegesis God's will for the salvation of the
whole human race as expressed in the New Testament." Hence
he takes refuge in the " voluntas revelata," which differs from the
" occulta." Should the former not agree with the latter and
revelation declare that God wills, whereas the " voluntas secreta "
really does not so will, then the passages of the revealed word
" are a proof that God is raised above our code of morality."4
" The ' voluntas occulta ' becomes entirely arbitrary." The
demand, Luther says, that God should act as we think right is
tantamount to calling Him to account for being God. We must
believe that He is just and good even when He transgresses the
codes of Justinian and Aristotle. Is He, forsooth, only to con
demn that man whom we think deserving of condemnation ?
Shall we look upon it as an absurdity, that He should condemn
the man whose lot it is to be declared deserving of damnation ?

1 Loofs, " Dogmengesch.,"4 p. 758: " God's universal action and
His sovereign will determines [according to Luther's theory] man's
destiny." That passages of the Bible, such as 1 Timothy ii. 4, as
urged in the " Diatribe " of Erasmus, contradict this, Luther will
not admit. " Illudit sese Diatribe ignorantia sua, dum nihil dis-
tinguit inter Deum prcedicatum et absconditum, hoc est inter verbum
Dei et Deum ipsum. Multa . . . Deus . . . vult, quce verbo suo
non ostendit se velle ; sic non vult mortem peccatoris, verbo scilicet,
vult autem illam voluntate ilia imperscrutabili." In connection with
such thoughts Luther does not shrink from saying (p. 731 = 284):
" Si placet tibi Deus indignos coronans, non debet etiam displicere im-
meritos damnans" and (p. 633 = 154) : "Sua voluntate nos necessario
damnabiles facit." The passage here quoted on the " Deus absconditus "
is to be found in Luther's " De servo arbitrio," p. 685 = 222, and has
many parallels, for instance, p. 684, 689 = 221, 227. Of such passages
Kattenbusch says (p. 17, ibid.} : " Luther expressly advances it as a
theory that God has two contradictory wills, the secret will of which no
one knows anything, and another which He causes to be proclaimed."
Luther assumes that God makes use of His " exemption from the
moral law which binds us " by " not being obliged actually to strive
after what He proclaims to be His intention [the salvation of all men]
— in other words, that He is free to lie." According to Luther there is
a great difference " between God not considering Himself bound by
His word, and man acting in the same way " (ibid.).

2 Taube, p. 35. 3 See above p. 235 f.

4 Taube, p. 35. See what has already been said (vol. i., p. 155 ff.) of
Luther's connection with the Nominalism of Occam. It should also
be compared with what follows.

270 THE APOSTASY

Shall we consider it wrong that He should harden whom He
chooses to harden, and have mercy on whom He wills to have
mercy ?x From the standpoint that we must simply accept the
" seer eta maiestatis " even when apparently most unreasonable,
he pours out his scorn on the efforts of the olden theologians to
harmonise free-will with eternal election to grace.

His last word is that all we say of God is imperfect, inaccurate
and altogether inadequate. As a matter of fact, however, as a
Protestant critic already cited says,2 " By the ' voluntas occulta '
everything is called in question that Christian theology affirms
concerning God on the authority of the gospel. Luther not only
saw, but allowed, these consequences, yet as he was perfectly
alive to the danger which they constituted, he is careful to warn
people against going further into the question of the ' Deus
maiestatis.' ' Non est interrogandum, cur ita faciat, sed rever-
endus Deus, qui talia et possit et velit. . . .' Luther always held
fast to the actuality and rights of the Secret Will. That he never
forsook this standpoint even later, when the ' voluntas beneplaciti '
alone was of interest to him, has been established by recent
research. In his practice, however, we find but little trace of
what was really an essential part of Luther's theology."

The same theologian is of opinion that the inconsistencies in
which Luther at last finds himself entangled are the best refuta
tion of his denial of free-will and the powers of the natural man.3

A second consequence of his teaching may also be pointed
out here. From his theory of the enslaved will Luther was
forced to deduce that God is responsible for evil.

" It is indeed an offence to sound common sense and to natural
reason to hear that God is pleased to abandon men, to harden
and to damn them, as though He — He, the All-Merciful, the All-
Perfect — took delight in sin and torment. Who would not be
horrified at this ? . . . and yet we cannot get away from this,
notwithstanding the many attempts that have been made to
save the holiness of God. . . . Reason must always insist upon
the compulsion God imposes on man."4

According to Luther it is quite wrong to wish to judge of
God's secret, inscrutable action.6 Fly, he repeats again and

1 P. 729 seq. = 2S3. 2 Taube, p. 35 f.

3 Ibid., p. 33.

4 P.' 719 = 268 : " Hoc offendit quam maxime sensum ilium communcm
seu rationem naturalem," etc. Cp. p. 707 seq. — 252seq.: " Ratio humana
offenditur. . . . Absurdum enim manet, ratione iudice, ut Deus ille
Justus et bonus exigat a libero arbitrio impossibilia. . . . Sed fides et
spiritus aliter iudicant, qui Deum bonum credunt, etiamsi omnes homines
perderet." P. 720 = 260 : " Cuius (Dei) voluntatis nulla est causa, nee
ratio, quce illi ceu regula et mensura prcescribatur, quum nihil sit illi
cequale aut superius, sed ipse est regula omnium."

5 P. 784 = 363 : " Si enim talis esset eius iustitia, quce humano captu
posset iudicari esse iusta, plane non esset divina."

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 271

again, from these stumbling-blocks to faith. " Quczrere non
licet. ! Adore the hidden ruling. " Adorare decet."2

It is true that the author, here as elsewhere, shows a certain
reluctance to credit to God Himself the performance of what is
evil ; he prefers to speak of God's action as though it merely
supplied man, whose own inclination is towards what is evil,
with the power and ability to act.3 The same theory is to be met
with in Calvin. 4 But, the critics in Luther's own camp objected : 6

This does not settle the question, Luther must go further. . . .
He admits that, after all, God not only has a part in the origin of
sin, since owing to His omnipotence He is the cause of all things
('causa principalis omnium'), but even made Adam to sin.6
And yet, precisely on account of the difficulty, faith will not
relinquish it." " Surely a ' credo,' not only ' quamquam,' but,
' quia, absurdum.' "7

We may, in the third place, cast a glance at the ethical
consequences of the theory.

Luther refuses to admit what all people naturally believe,
viz. that if God gives commandments man must be able
either to obey, or to disobey, and thus incur guilt. What
he teaches is, that God has a right and reasons of His own
to impose commandments even though there should be no
free-will ; since without Him we are unable to keep the
commandments He gives them for the wise purpose of
teaching us how little we are capable of. The law is in
tended to awaken in us a sense of indigence, a desire for
redemption, and the consciousness of guilt. When once
this is present, God's power does the rest ; but the ground-

1 P. 686 = 223. 2 P. 695 = 236. 3 Cp. p. 709, 711, 747 = 255,
257, 308.

* Cp. M. Scheibe, " Calvins Pradestinationslehre, ein Beitrag zur
Wiirdigung der Eigenart seiner Theologie und Religiositat," Halle,
1897, p. 12. s Taube, p. 39.

6 Kattenbusch, p. 11 f. : "Adam's sin, from which springs the
depravity of the human race, was [according to Luther] called forth by
God Himself . . . Adam could not avoid acting contrary to the
command."

7 " De servo arbitrio" p. 633 = 154 : In order that faith may reign,
everything must be hidden " sub contrario obiectu, sensu, experientia.
.... Hie est fidei summus gradus, credere ilium esse clementem qui tarn
paucos salvat, tarn multos damnat, qui sua voluntate nos necessario
damnabiles facit." Against this Taube remarks (p. 41) : " Theological
criticism cannot fail to assert that the Christian faith, viz. belief in a
God of almighty and holy love, becomes impossible, if He arbitrarily
predestines so many, indeed, the greater part of mankind, to damna
tion, and is the creator of sin. ... In this case faith in the Christian
God, and also morality generally, could only remain despite such
theological theories."

272 THE APOSTASY

work of all salvation is that we should become conscious of
our nothingness, for which reason the belief in the enslaved
will is to be proclaimed everywhere as the supreme virtue.

" God," he says, " has promised His grace first and foremost to
the abandoned and to those who despair. Man cannot, however,
be completely humbled so long as he is not conscious that his
salvation is entirely beyond his own powers, plans and efforts,
beyond both his will and his works, and depends solely upon the
free choice, will and decree of another (' ex alterius arbitrio,
consilio, voluntate ' ) . " l

Hence, instead of a moral responsibility for not keeping the
commandments, all there is in man is a certain compunction for
being unable to keep them. But this is surely very different
from the consciousness of guilt. " Without free-will there is no
guilt." " Luther can no longer assert that guilt is incurred by
the rejection of grace." If a sense of guilt actually exists it can
not but be a subjective delusion, nor can it fail to be recognised
aa such as soon as we perceive the true state of the case, viz. that
it is all due to delusive suggestion. " When Luther instances
Adam's fall as a proof of guilt, we can only see in this an admission
of his perplexity. In this matter Luther's theology — I mean
Luther's own theology — is altogether at fault."2

The greatest stress is laid by the champion of the " en
slaved will " on the alleged importance of this doctrine for
the personal assurance of salvation.

It is this doctrine alone, he says, which can impart to
timorous man the pacifying certainty that he will find a
happy eternity at the hands of the Almighty, Who guides
him ; on the other hand, the assumption of free-will shows
man a dangerous abyss, ever yawning, into which the abuse
of his freedom threatens to plunge him. Better to trust to
God than to our own free-will.

" Since God," he writes, " has taken my salvation upon
Himself and wills to save me, not by my own works but by
His grace and mercy, I am certain and secure (' securus et
certus ') that no devil and no misfortune can tear me out of
His hands. . . . This is how all the pious glory in their
God."3

1 P. 632, 633 = 153, 154. Cp. Luther's Commentary on Romans,
1515-1516, on the humility and despair of self which brings about
justification (vol. i., p. 217 ff.).

2 Taube, dealing with certain Protestants, who, after having duly
watered down some of Luther's theological peculiarities, assert that
" the feeling of responsibility is satisfactorily explained in his the
ology." 3 P. 783

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 273

With enthusiasm he describes this consciousness, care
fully refraining, however, from looking at the other side,
where perchance predestination to hell, even without free
will, may lie.1 When it presses on him against his will he
at once drowns the thought with the consoling words of
St. Paul on the greatness of the inscrutable ways of God.
His justice must indeed be unsearchable, otherwise there
would be no faith, but in the light of eternal glory we shall
realise what we cannot now understand.2

The not over-enthusiastic critic, whom we have frequently
had occasion to quote, remarks : " Seeing that faith accord
ing to Luther is no act of our will, but a mere form given to
it by God, . . . Luther is right in saying, that the very
slightest deviation from determinism is fatal to his whole
position. His ' fides ' is ' fides specialissima.' ' It is the
assurance of personal salvation. But even though " com
bined with a courageous certainty of salvation, Luther's
views, taken as they stand, would still offer no consolation
to the tempted, so that when Luther has to deal with such
he is forced to put these views in the background." The
critic goes on to wonder : " How if the thought, which
Luther himself is unable to overcome, should trouble a
man and make him believe that he is of the number of
those whom the ' voluntas maiestatis ' wills to hand over
to destruction ? " His conclusion is : " The certainty of
salvation, about which Luther is so anxious, cannot be
reached by starting from his premises."3

At the end of his " De servo arbitrio" summing up all he
had said, Luther appeals to God's rule and to His un
changeable predestination of all things, even the most
insignificant ; likewise to the empire of the devil and his
power over spirits. His words on this matter cannot be read
without amazement.

" If we believe that Satan is the Prince of this world, who
constantly attacks the Kingdom of Christ with all his might
and never releases the human beings he has enslaved with
out being forced to do so by the power of the Spirit of God,
then it is clear that there can be no free-will."4 Either God

1 P. 784 = 363 : " Si movet, quod difficile sit, clementiam et cequitatem
Dei tueri, ut qui damnet immeritos" etc.

2 Ibid., and p. 785 = 365. 3 Taube, p. 41 ff.
4 " De servo arbitrio" p. 786 = 366.

274 THE APOSTASY

or Satan rules over men ; to this pet thought he adds :
" The matter stands simply thus . . . when God is in us,
the devil is absent and then we can will only what is good ;
but when God is not there, the devil is, and then we can
will only what is evil. Neither God nor Satan leaves us with
an indifferent will."1 " When the stronger of the two comes
upon us,"2 he says, " and makes a prey of us, snatching us
away from our former ruler, we become servants and
prisoners to such an extent that we desire and do gladly
what he wills (' ut velimus et faciamus libenter quce ipse
velit'). Thus the human will stands," Luther continues,
using a simile which has become famous, " like a saddle-
horse between the two. If God mounts into the saddle,
man wills and goes forward as God wills . . . but if the
devil is the horseman, then man wills and acts as the devil
wills. He has no power to run to one or the other of the two
riders and offer himself to him, but the riders fight to obtain
possession of the animal."3

1 "De servo arbitrio," p. 670 = 199. 2 Ibid., p. 635 = 157.

3 " Sic humana voluntas in medio posita est, ceu iumentum. Si
insederit Deus, vult et vadit quo vult Deus, ut psalmus (Ixxiii. [Ixxii.], 22)
dicit : Factus sum sicut iumentum, et ego semper tecum. Si insederit
Satan, vult et vadit quo vult Satan. Nee est in eius arbitrio ad utrum
sessorem currere aut eum qucerere, sed ipsi sessores certant ob ipsum
obtinendum et possidendum" (p. 635 = 157). And yet it has recently
been asserted by some Protestants, that, according to Luther, grace
was " psychologically active," whereas by the Schoolmen it was
regarded as a " dead quality " ; Luther's " delicate psychological
comprehension of God's educational way " is at the same time ex
tolled. N. Paulus rightly remarks (" Theol. Revue," 1908, col. 344),
"that the Schoolmen advocated a vital* co-operation with grace is
known to everyone who is at all acquainted with Scholasticism." He
quotes W. Kohler's opinion of Luther's system : Where man is im
pelled by God " every psychological factor must disappear." " All
actions become in the last instance something foreign to man " (" Theol.
Literaturztng.," 1903, col. 526). Paulus also refers to the following
criticism by Kohler concerning the total depravity of man's nature
by the Fall, to which Luther ascribes our unfreedom : " Involuntarily
we feel ourselves urged to ask, in view of this mass of siiifulness,
how, given the total depravity of man, can redemption be possible
unless by some gigantic, supernatural, mechanical means ? " (" Ein
Wort zu Denifles Luther," 1904, p. 39).

F. Kattenbusch points out in his criticism of Luther's doctrine of
the enslaved will (" Luthers Lehre vom unfreien Willen," p. 32 ff.)
that Luther's aim was certainly to humble and abase himself before
the greatness of God's grace, but that he went much too far ; he
wished to feel his salvation as the " result of God's arbitrary act " ;
this sentiment was, however, not normal, nor " religiously healthy "
(p. 35 f.)- He also remarks (p. 10) : " If according to this [the com
parison with the saddle-horse] the process of regeneration is made to

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 275

With frightful boldness he declares this view to be the
very core and basis of religion. Without this doctrine of the
enslaved will, the supernatural character of Christianity
cannot, so he says, be maintained ; the work of redemption
falls to the ground, because whoever sets up free-will cheats
Christ of all His merit j1 whoever advocates free-will brings
death and Satan into the soul.2

In such passages we hear the real Luther, with all his
presumptuous belief in himself : "To me the defence of this
truth is a matter of supreme and eternal importance. I am
convinced that life itself should be set at stake in order to
preserve it. It must stand though the whole world be
involved thereby in strife and tumult, nay, even fall into
ruins and dissolve into nothing."3

He ventures again to assert of Erasmus, that it had not
been given him from above to feel, as he himself does, how
in this great question " faith, conscience, salvation, the
Word of God, the glory of Christ and even God Himself are
involved."4 Concerning himself, on the other hand, he
assures the reader that, with no earthly motives, he is waging
a great war " with a God-given courage and steadfastness
which his foes call obstinacy ; that he holds fast to his cause
in spite of so many dangers to his life, so much hatred, so
many persecutions, in short, exposed as he is to the fury of
man and of all the devils."5

In various passages a lurid light is thrown on his inner

appear merely as a struggle between God and Satan, in which God
remains the victor, it is clear that the doctrine which Luther cherishes
of the ethico-religious life is altogether mechanical and outward."
Kattenbusch was quite aware of the influence of the mediaeval schools
on Luther. The after-effects of Nominalism, he says, are not, indeed,
so very prominent in the Reformer, " yet it seems to me we must
admit, that alongside the principal religious current in Luther, runs
a side-stream of religious feeling which can only spring from
Nominalism and Mysticism. ... In so far as they influence Luther's
doctrines, the latter may be said to spring from a polluted source.
And, as regards the doctrine of the ' servum arbitrium ' and of Pre
destination, the Church which takes its name from Luther has as
suredly done well in improving upon the paths traced out for her by
the great Reformer" (p. 94 f.). Cp. Albert Ritschl's criticism of
Luther's denial of free-will, " Rechtfertigung und Versohnung," 34,
pp. 280, 296 ff.

1 P. 779 = 350 : " Dum liberum arbitrium statuis, Christum evacuas."

2 Ibid. : " De libero arbitrio nihil dicere poteris, nisi quce contraria
sunt Christo, scilicet quod error, mors, Satan et omnia mala in ipso reg-
nent." 3 Ibid., p. 625 = 143.

* Ibid. 5 Ibid., p. 625 = 144.

276 THE APOSTASY

state. In language which recalls the pseudo-mysticism of his
Commentary on Romans ten years earlier, he says, that the
predestination to hell which he advocated was certainly
terrifying, that he himself had frequently taken great
offence at it and had been brought to the abyss of despair,
so that he wished he had never been born ; but then " he
saw how wholesome was this despair and how near to
grace."1 " For whoever is convinced that all things depend
on God's Will, in his despair of self avoids making any
choice and simply waits for God to act ; such a one is near
to grace and to finding salvation." He himself " attributes
nothing to himself, hopes for nothing and desires nothing "
for his salvation ; in thus waiting on the action of God's
grace he is very nigh to salvation, though he is as it were
dead, stifled by the consciousness of guilt, and spiritually
buried in hell ; " whoever has read our works will be
familiar with all this."2

The echo of the pseudo-mystical ideas in which he had
formerly steeped himself is plainly discernible in these
words which go to form one of the most remarkable of the
pictures he has left us of his state.

Even the " self-righteous," whom he had at one time
so bitterly assailed, again rise from their graves. The ad
mission of free-will, he tells them, destroys all inward peace.
After every work performed, the question still rankles :
"Is it pleasing to God, or does God require something
more ? This is attested by the experience of all self-
righteous (iustitiarii), and I myself, to my cost, was
familiar with it for many long years."3

On the same page he gives us a glimpse of the psycho
logical source whence his whole theory of the enslaved will
springs. The doctrine was born of personal motives and
fashioned to suit his own state of soul. None the less, he
insists that it must also become the common property of all
the faithful which none can do without, nay, the very
basis of the new Christianity. " Without this doctrine I

1 " De servo arbitrio," p. 719 = 268: "Ego ipse non semel offen-
sus sum usque ad profundum et dbyssum desperationis, ut optarem,
nunquam esse me creatum hominem, antequam scirem, quam salutaris
ilia esset desperatio et quam gratice propinqua."

2 Ibid., p. 633 = 154. To the reader of the present work it will
also be familiar. Compare the passages previously quoted, vol. i.,
218 f., 235, 238 ff., 259, 317 f., 379, 381. 3 Ibid., p. 783 = 362 seq.

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 277

should believe it necessary to plague myself with un
certainty and to beat the air with hopeless efforts, even
were there no perils for the soul, no tribulations and no
devils. Though I should live and work for all eternity, my
conscience would never attain to a real peace and be able
to say to itself, you have done enough for God." He goes
so far as to say : " For myself I admit, that, were free-will
offered me, I should not care to have it ; I should not wish
to see anything placed within my power by means of which
I might work for my salvation, because I should never be
able to withstand and endure the trials and dangers of life
and the assaults of so many devils."1

The last words of the book even exceed the rest in confi
dence, and the audacity of his demand that his work should
be accepted without question almost takes away one's breath :
" In this book I have not merely theorised ; I have set up
definite propositions, and these I shall defend ; no one will
I permit to pass judgment on them, and I advise all to
submit to them. May the Lord Whose cause is here vindi
cated," he says, addressing himself to Erasmus, " give you
light to make of you a vessel to His honour and glory.
Amen."2

The great importance of the work " De servo arbitrio "
for a knowledge of the religious psychology of its author
may warrant a description of some of its other psychological
aspects, and first of the connection discernible between the
denial of free-will and Luther's so-called inward experiences,
which were supposed to be behind his whole enterprise.

1 " De servo arbitrio" p. 783 = 262 f : " Ego sane me confitcor, si qua
fieri posset, nollcm mihi dari liberum arbitrium, aut quippiam in manu
mea relinqui, quo ad salutem conari possem," etc.

2 Ibid., p. 787 — 308 : " Eyo vcro hoc libro non contuli, sed asserui
et assero, ac penes nullum volo csse indicium, scd omnibus suadeo, ut
prcestent obsequium." The extraordinary self-confidence of these
words is more easily explained if we consider them as aimed against
the literary device of Erasmus. After the manner of the Humanists,
at the beginning of his " Diatribe," ho had declared that he intended
merely to enter upon an examination, a collatio (cp. dia.Tpi(3r)),
and that he hated logical demonstrations, an exaggeration for which
Luther soundly rated him in the very first pages, urging that he must
be either a " frivolous orator " or a " godless writer," if he could
not take so important a question seriously (p. 120). The termination
of Erasmus's work, where he says : " Contuli, penes alios stet ultimum
iudicium " (ed. J. v. AValter, p. 92), is played upon word for word
in the conclusion of the " De servo arbitrio."

278 THE APOSTASY

He always believed he was following the irresistible pull
of grace, and that he was merely treading the path ap^
pointed to him from above. In this work he breaks out into
a loud hymn in praise of the irresistibility of the Divine
action. " All that I have done," he exclaims, " was not the
result of my own will ; this God knows, and the world, too,
should have known it long ago. Hence, what I am and by
what spirit and council I was drawn into the controversy is
God's business."1 In this explanation, so typical of his
character and way of thinking, is summed up his reply to
that argument of Erasmus against his doctrine, particularly
of free-will, where the latter had confronted him with the
teaching of the whole of the Church's past.

For more than ten years, Luther adds, he had to listen to the
reproach of his conscience : How dare you venture to overthrow
the ancient teaching of all men and of the Church, which has been
confirmed by saints, martyrs and miracles ? " I do not think
anyone has ever had to fight with this objection as I had. Even
to me it seemed incredible that this impregnable stronghold
which had so long withstood the storms, should fall. I adjure
God, and swear by my very soul, that, had I not been driven, had
I not been forced by my own insight and the evidence of things,
my resistance would not have ceased even to this day." But,
under the higher impulse, ho had suffered authorities ancient
and modern to pass like a flood over his head that God's grace
might alone be exalted. " Since this is my only object, the
spirit of the olden saints and martyrs and their wonder-working
power witness in my favour." The utter rigidity of his doctrine
and line of thought, and the connection between his present
attack on freedom and his own ostensible unfreedom in God's
hands could hardly be placed in a clearer light than here in
Luther's reply to the argument of Erasmus.

In another passage he describes, perhaps unconsciously, his
experiences with his own will, so inclined to contradiction and
anger ; he says : That the will is not free is evident from the
fact that, " it becomes the more provoked the greater the
opposition it encounters. . . .2 Whoever pursues an object
passionately is not open to correction, as experience shows. If
he gives way, this is not willingly, but under pressure, and
because it serves his purpose. It is only the man who has^no
interest whatever who allows things to take their own course."3

1 il De servo arbitrio," p. 641

2 " Quod probat eius indignatio. Hoc non fteret, si esset libera vel
haberet liberum arbitrium" The effect of egotism in man depraved by
original sin is here classed by him with the enslavement of the will ;
he was ever given to exaggerating the strength of concupiscence.
Cp. vol. i., pp. 70 f., 110 ff. 3 P. 634=156.

BE SERVO ARBITRIO 279

From time to time the several pet ideas which had played a
part in his previous development are harnessed to his argument
and made to prove the servitude of the will.

We are conscious, he says, that, pressed down to the earth by
concupiscence, we do not act as we should ; hence man is not
free to do what is good. The " sting " of this inability remains, as
experience teaches, in spite of all theological distinctions. Natural
reason, which groans so loudly under it and seeks to resist God's
action, would prove it even were it not taught in Holy Scripture.
But Paul, throughout the whole of his Epistle to the Romans,
while vindicating grace, teaches that we are incapable of any
thing, even when we fancy we are doing what is good.1

And further, the desire of gaining merit for heaven — the
supposed error which he opposed quite early in his career owing
to his distaste for works generally — can only be finally vanquished
when the idol of free-will is overthrown. Then, too, he says, the
fear of undeserved damnation by God also vanishes ; for if there
be no merit for heaven, then neither can there be any for hell ;
accordingly we may say without hesitation what must otherwise
be repellent to every mind, viz. that God condemns to hell
although man has not deserved it (" immeritos damnat ");2 this
is the highest degree of faith, to hold fast to the belief that
" God is righteous when of His own will He makes us of necessity
to be worthy of damnation (' necessario damnabiles facit '), so
that He would seem, as Erasmus says, to take delight in the
torments of the damned and be more worthy of hatred than
of love."3

Here another element of his earlier development and mental
trend comes into view, viz. a disregard for the rights of reason,
based ostensibly on the rights of faith.

The denial of free-will seems to him in this regard quite
attractive — such at least is the impression conveyed. For, when
we deny the freedom of the will, so much becomes contradictory
and mysterious to our reason. But so much the better ! " Reason
speaks nothing but madness and foolishness, especially con
cerning holy things."4 " Faith," so he declares at great length,
" has to do with things that do not appear (Heb. xi. 1) ; in order
that true faith may enter in, everything that is to be believed
must be wrapped in darkness. But things cannot be more com
pletely concealed than when what is seemingly contradictory is
presented to the mind, to the senses and to experience."5 In the
present case, according to Luther, the apparent injustice of God
in the " seemingly unjust " punishment of sinners, who are not
free agents, is a grand motive for faith in His Justice.6 Luther

1 " De servo arbitrio" p. 720 = 269.

2 Ibid., p. 730 = 283. Here he is seeking to prove, " (Deum non)
talcm esse oportere, qui merita respiciat in damnandis.'"

3 Ibid., p. 633 = 154. 4 Ibid., p. 673 = 204. 5 Ibid., p. 633=154.
6 " Hie est fidei summits gradus, credere ilium esse clemenlem, qui tarn

paucos salvat, tarn multos damnat. . . . iSi possem ulla ratione compre-
hendere, quomodo -is sit Deus misericors et iustus, qui tantam iram et

280 THE APOSTASY

here displays his love of paradox. Even more than in his other
writings plentiful opportunity for paradox presents itself in the
" De servo arbitrio," and of it he makes full use. " God makes
alive by putting to death," he writes in the passage under con
sideration, " He renders guilty and thereby justifies ; He drags
down the soul to hell and thereby raises it to heaven."

Among the forcible expressions by which, here as elsewhere, he
attempts to convince both himself and others, that he is in the
right, are the following : " Liberty of choice is a downright lie
(' merum mendacium ')."1 "Whoever assigns free-will to man,
thereby makes him Divine, and thus commits the worst form of
sacrilege."2 " To get rid altogether of the term free-will would
be the best and most pious work (' tutissimum et religiosissi-
mum')."3 Whoever follows the road of Erasmus "is rearing
within himself a Lucian — or a hog of the breed of Epicurus."4
" Erasmus concedes even more to free-will than all the sophists
hitherto."5 " He denies Christ more boldly than the Pelagians,"6
and those who hold with him are " double-dyed Pelagians, who
merely make a pretence of being their opponents."7 But he
himself, Luther, had never fallen so low as to defend free-will :
" I have always, up to this very hour, advocated in my writings
the theory that free-will is a mere name."8

In this last assertion ho repudiates his Catholic days and
refuses even to take into account the works dating from that
time ; in his Commentary on the Psalms he had expressly
admitted free-will for doing what is good and for the choice in
the matter of personal salvation ; it is true, however, that he
never published this work. But in many of the writings com
posed and published even after his apostasy he had clearly
assumed free-will in man and made it the basis of his practical
exhortations, as shown above (p. 239). Now, however, he
prefers to forget all such admissions.9

iniquitatem ostendit, non esset opus fide. Nunc cum id comprehendi non
potest, fit locus exercendce fidei."

1 " De servo arbitrio," p. 602 = 119. 2 Ibid., p. 636 = 158.

3 Ibid., p. 638=160. 4 P. 605=123. 5 Ibid., p. 601 = 117.

6 P. 664 = 192. The Weimar editor remarks of a similar assertion
of Luther's on p. 664 : " There is no doubt that Luther in this passage
draws conclusions from the definition of Erasmus (viz. of free-will)
which do not directly follow from it." In confirmation of this Katten-
busch (p. 28) is quoted where he speaks of " Luther's tactics in his
controversy with Erasmus, the object of which was ... to convict
Erasmus in one way or another, usually by distorting his words, of
rendering grace, the Holy Ghost, or Christ, superfluous for the attain
ment of salvation." Kattenbusch instances in support of this pp.
191 seq., 193, 208, 213, 224, 231, 238, 287, 303, 324, 330, 354, etc., in
the Erlangen ed.

7 P. 770 = 342. "And yet Erasmus, as against the Pelagians,
always upheld the necessity of the gratia peculiaris." Thus the Weim.
ed., 18, p. 770, n. 2. • Ibid., p. 756 = 320.

9 Luther says in the passage quoted : " Exstant themata et prob-
lemata, in quibus perpetuo asserui usque in hanc fioram, liberum arbi-
trium esse nihil et rem (eo verbo turn utebar) de solo titulo." The last

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 281

On the other hand he pretends to recall that in his Catholic
days, " Christ had been represented as a terrible judge, Who must
be placated by the intercession of His mother and the saints ;
that the many works, ceremonies, Religious Orders and vows
were invented to propitiate Christ and to obtain His grace."1
Out of this is forged a fresh proof, drawn from his own experience,
of the servitude of the will. For had Christ not been regarded
exclusively as a judge, but as a " sweet mediator," Who by His
blood has redeemed all, then recourse would not have been had
to the empty works of a self-righteous free-will. As it was, how
ever, he had been made to feel strongly, that this delusion of
wrorks and free-will could only lead to despair. — Yet if, in his
agony of soul, he really had sought and found peace of con
science in the theory of the enslaved will, how can we explain his
many statements, made at almost that very time, concerning
his enduring inward anguish and doubts ?2 The Protestant
theologian, O. Scheel, the last to translate and expound the " De
servo arbitrio," says of the comfort that Luther professed to have
derived from the absence of free-will and from the theory of
predestination, that " in the Reformer's piety a tendency is
discernible which militates against the supposed whole-hearted
and settled confidence of his faith in the redemption."3

Contradictions formed an integral part of Luther's psy
chology. Long pages of this work are full of them, though
Luther seems quite unaware of his inconsistencies, obscurities
and confusion. Conflicting lines of thought may be traced,
similar to those which appeared in the Commentary on
Romans (vol. i., p. 256), while the author was still a young
man. They indicate a mentality singularly deficient in
exactitude and clearness. The workshop where his ideas
were fashioned was assuredly not an orderly one.

In the first place the main contention is very involved,
while the statements that the will of the man who docs
what is evil is moved by God seem conflicting. The " movet,
agit, rapit " in which the action of God on the will usually
consists, docs not here assert its sway ; the Divine Omnipo
tence, which, as a rule, is the cause of all action, interferes

words refer to the 13th Thesis of his Heidelberg Disputation (see vol. i.,
p. 317). The Weimar editor quotes against the " perpetuo asserui,"
" Werke," Weim. ed., 1, p. 32, and 4, p. 295, with the remark : "These
are exceptions of which Erasmus could not be aware." It is not,
however, a question of Erasmus, but whether Luther was telling the
truth when he said: "It is false that I e^er admitted free- will"
(" antea non nihil illi tribuerim ").

1 P. 778 = 354. 2 Cp. vol. v., xxxii. 4.

8 Luther's Works ed. by Buchwald, etc., 2. Supplementary volume,
1905, p. 530.

282 THE APOSTASY

here, either not at all, or at least less strongly than usual-
God must not be made the direct author of sin. This
illogical twisting of his theory is particularly noticeable
where great sins of mighty consequence are in question. Is
God to be -regarded as having caused the Fall of Adam and
the treason of Judas ? Luther certainly does not answer
this question in the affirmative so categorically as Mclanch-
thon in his " Loci theolo^ici."1 Here he carefully avoids
speaking of an irresistible impulse of the will given by God ;
for the time being we seem to lose sight altogether of God's
imperative and exclusive action.

In the case of the betrayal of Judas, as Scheel points out,
Luther does not mention any necessity " which compelled Judas
to act as he did " ; Luther seems, at least in certain passages,
to look on that act as necessary, only because, having been
foreseen by God, it " inevitably occurs at the time appointed."2
Yet elsewhere he says : " His will [that of the traitor] was the
work of God ; God by His Almighty Power moved his will as
He does all that is in the world."3

A similar confusion is apparent in his statements concerning
Adam's Fall. Adam was not impelled to his sin, but the Spirit
of God forsook him, and intentionally placed him in a position
in which he could not do otherwise than fall — even though his
will was as yet free arid though as yet he felt no attraction
towards evil as the result of original sin. May we then say after
all that God brought about the Fall and was Himself the cause
of the depravity of the whole human race through original sin ?
To this question, which Luther himself raises, the only answer he
gives is : " He is God ; of His willing there is no cause or reason,"
because no creature is above Him and He Himself " is the rule
of all things."4 Because He wills a thing, it is good, "not

1 Cp. Melanchthon's "Loci theologici" (1521), in the third edition
by Plitt-Kolde, 1900, p. 87. In this work, in which " the fundamental
ideas of Luther found a classical expression," the theology is " strongly
predestinarian. in character, and even answers affirmatively the ques
tion : ' utrum Dcus mala facial.' " Kawerau, in Moller, " Lehrb. der
Kirchengesch.," 33, 1907, pp. 41, 43. The " Loci " Luther speaks of in
" De servo arbitrio " (Weim. ed., 18, p. 601 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 7,
p. 117) as an " invictus libellus, meo iudicio non solum immortal itate,
sed canone quoque ecclesiastico dignus."

2 Scheel, ibid, (above, p. 264, n. 3), p. 400.

3 " Fingat, refingat, cavilletur, recavilletur Diatribe, quantum volet.
Si prcescivit Dcus, ludamfore proditorem, necessarie ludas fiebat proditor*
nee erat in manu Judce aut ullius creaturce, aliter facere aut voluntatem
mutare, licet id fecerit volendo non coactus, sed velle illud erat opus Dei,
quod omnipotentia sua movebat, sicut et omnia alia." " Werke," Weim.
ed., 18, p. 715 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, p. 263.

* " Cur pennisit (Dcus) Adam ruere ? . . . Deus cst, cuius volun-
tatis nulla est causa nee ratio," etc. Ibid., p. 712 = 260.

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 283

because He must or ought so to will." In the case of the creature
it is otherwise ; " His will must have reason and cause, not so,
however, the will of the Creator."1 What seems to follow from
these Occamistic subtleties is, that Adam's sin was after all
" brought about by God,"2 and that Adam could not do other
wise than sin, even though God merely placed him in a position
where sin was inevitable, but that he was nevertheless punished,
and with him all his descendants. But is it so certain that in
Adam's case Luther excludes a real impulse, a real inner com
pulsion to transgress ? The fact is that certain of his statements on
this question present some difficulty. " Since God moves and
does all, we must take it that He moves and acts even in Satan
and in the godless."3 It is true, according to Luther, that He
acts in them " as He finds them, i.e. since they are turned away
from God and are wicked, and are carried away by the impulse of
Divine Omnipotence (' rapiuntur motu illo divincc, omnipo-
tentice '), they do only what is contrary to God and evil. . . .
He works what is evil in the wicked because the instrument,
which is unable to withdraw itself from the impelling force of
His might, is itself evil."4 If this means that the impulse on
God's part must in every case have an effect conformable to the
condition of the instrument moved, then, in Adam's case, its
effect should surely have been good, inasmuch as Adam, being
without original sin, was not inclined to evil by any passions.
If then Adam fell we can only infer that the Almighty allowed
an entirely different impulse from the ordinary one to take effect,
one which led directly to the Fall. How, in that case, could God
be exonerated from being the author of sin ? Luther, unfortu
nately, was not in the habit of reconciling his conflicting thoughts.
According to him there is nothing unreasonable in God's punish
ing the first man so severely for no fault of his. Why ? It is
mere " malice on the part of the human heart " to boggle at the
punishment of the innocent ; it takes for granted the reward
which, without any merit on their part, is the portion of the
saved, and yet it dares to murmur when the matter is to its
disadvantage and the reprobate too receive a reward without
any desert on their part. 5 A reward is a reward, and the same
standard should be applied freely in both cases.

It is scarcely comprehensible how, after such wanderings out
of the right path and the exhibition of such mental confusion,
Luther could proclaim so loudly the victory of his " servum
arbitrium." He describes his proof of the " unchanging, eternal

1 "De servo arbitrio" p. 712 = 260.

2 Thus Kattenbusch, ibid., p. 22, who points out that, according to
Luther, " Nothing takes place in the world without God." He con
cludes (ibid.} that "On the whole nothing is gained" by Luther s
supposed attempts to relieve God of the responsibility for Adam s Fall.

•ti» " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 709 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, p. 255.

* Ibid.

" 5 Ibid., p. 730 = 284 : " Quia incommodum sib i est, hoc imquum,^ hoc
intolerabile est, hie expostulatur, hie munnuratur, hie blasphematur."

284 THE APOSTASY

and infallible will by which God foresees, orders and carries out
all things " as a " thunderbolt " launched against the Erasmic and
Popish heresy.

Even the editor of the Weimar edition of the " De servo
arbitrio " is unable to refrain from remarking in connection with
one such passage : "It cannot be denied that this mechanical
conception of a God, Who is constantly at work, reeks strongly of
pantheism."1 He also quotes the opinion of Kattenbusch :
" Luther occasionally expresses his idea [of God's constant
action] very imperfectly." " God becomes to a certain extent
the slave of His own Power," and all things " lose their resistance
when in His presence." " There is no doubt that the whole
conception is strongly impregnated with pantheism."2 Katten
busch says further : " Relying on such an argument, Luther
could not fail to advocate the view that everything is determined
by God, even what has no bearing on morality or religion."
Finally he concludes : " We were therefore right in refusing,, as
we did, to admit that Luther's proposition : ' Omnia necessario
fiunt ' (p. 134 in the Erl. ed.) applied merely to the domain of
morals, as Luther himself tries to make us believe."3 This
subsequent explanation given by Luther is only a fresh proof
of his mental confusion. Kattenbusch brings forward other
evidences of the conflicting currents in Luther's train of thought ;
for instance, in his conception of God and of destiny ; into these
we have, however, no time to enter.4

The theoretical weakness of Luther's attack on free-will and
its manifest bias in his own religious psychology caused the
theologian O. Scheel to exclaim regretfully : " Luther impressed
a deterministic stamp on the fundamental religious ideas which
he put before the world." Luther's determinism was vainly
repudiated as a " reformed heresy " by the later Protestants.
It is true that Luther based his predestinarian sayings on his
" personal experience of salvation, which he felt to have been
a free gift," but then his " religious state was not normal," as
Kattenbusch already had " rightly pointed out." Luther's
doctrine of the distinction between the " Deus absconditus "
and the " Deus revelatus " Scheel ascribes to a false conception
of God,6 though he is inclined to look with favour on Luther's
fatalism, finding therein " nothing irreligious," but merely
Luther's lively " trust in God " ; he even speaks of the "religious
power and truth inherent in this idea."6

Under another aspect the work exhibits, better than any
other, the undeniable qualities of its writer, the elasticity

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 711, n. 1.

2 Kattenbusch, ibid., p. 15 f.

* Ibid., p. 20. Cp. on the proposition " omnia necessario fiunt"
above, p. 265, n. 3. 4 P. 20 ff.

5 Scheel, ibid, (see above, p. 264, n. 3), pp. 211, 529 f ., 532, 545. Kat
tenbusch, ibid. 6 Scheel, ibid., p. 540.

DE SERVO ARBITRIO 285

of his mind, his humour and imagination, and his startling
readiness to turn every circumstance to advantage ; at the
same time, undoubtedly because it was a case of breaking a
lance with Erasmus, the style is more polished than usual
and the language less abusive. The editor of the Weimar
edition speaks of the book as the " most brilliant of Luther's
Latin polemics, nay, perhaps the most brilliant of all his con
troversial works."1

Luther would not have committed this great work to
writing had not his mind been full of the subject. How far
calm deliberation had any place in the matter it is as hard
to determine here, as it is in so many of his other productions,
where feeling seems to hold the reins. It is likewise difficult
to understand how Luther, in practice, managed to com
promise with the ideas he expounds, more especially as he
was the leader of a movement on the banner of which was
inscribed, not the gloomy domination of fatalism, but the
amelioration of religious conditions by means of moral
effort in all directions. The contradiction between lack of
freedom on the one hand, and practice and the general
belief in free-will on the other, was a rock which he circum
navigated daily, thanks to his self-persuasion that the
strands drawn by the Divine Omnipotence around the will
were of such a nature as not to be perceptible and could
therefore be ignored. We believe ourselves to be free, and
do not feel any constraint because we surrender ourselves
willingly to be guided to the right or to the left ; this, how
ever, is merely due to the exceptional fineness of the threads
which set the machine in motion.

For an ennobling of human nature and of the Christian
state such a system was certainly not adapted. A tragic
fate ordained that the apostasy, of which the cause was
ostensibly the deepening of religious life and feeling, should
bear this bitter fruit. Freedom had been proclaimed for
the examination of religious truth, and now, the " sub
mission of every man " is categorically demanded to
doctrines opposed to free-will and to the dignity of the
Christian. Nevertheless, both then and later, even to the
present clay, this curious, assertive book, like the somewhat
diffident one of Erasmus, to which it was a reply — both of
them so characteristic of the mind of their authors — have
1 P. 211 f.

286 THE APOSTASY

drawn many to examine the spirit of that age and of its two
spokesmen.1

In the work " De servo arbitrio," Luther speaks of
Laurentius Valla as one who had cherished similar views.2
In his "Table-Talk" he praises his opinions on free-will and
the simplicity which he cultivated both in piety and learning.
" Laurentius Valla," he says, " is the best ' Wai ' [Italian]
I have ever come across in my life."3 Opinions differ widely
as to Valla's views, which are expressed with enigmatical
obscurity in his Dialogue " De liber o arbitrio.''' At a later
date Erasmus took his part against Luther, rightly pointing
out that Valla was seeking to explain popularly how it is
that the Divine foreknowledge does not necessarily make all
things happen without freedom and of necessity.4 Valla
was a Humanist and critic, but neither a theologian nor a
philosopher. In the question at issue he left the decision to
faith, but laid great stress on the objections raised by
reason. According to a modern historian he did not deny
free-will, but merely left the problem, " which he neither
could nor would solve," to the Omnipotence of God.5

Luther's Later Dicta on the Enslaved Will and on

Predestination

Luther always remained faithful to the position taken up
in his great work " De servo arbitrio,''' as to both the absence
of freedom and predestination.

1 Of the more modern works we shall mention only the Catholic
one by H. Humbertclaude, " Erasme et Luther," 1910, and the
Protestant one by K. Zickendraht, " Der Streit zwischen Erasmus
und Luther iiber die Willensfreiheit," 1909. The latter, though on the
whole supporting Luther, cannot help perceiving " the contradictions
of the whole work ' De servo arbitrio'" (p. 130), which led Ritschl,
whom Kattenbusch follows, to call it an " unhappy piece of patch
work." Although he characterises Luther's ideas as " wholly the
outcome of the Pauline spirit " (p. 134), yet he speaks of " Luther's
pantheistic determinism " (p. 197), and avers the " incompatibility "
of the monistic pantheism which he finds here with the ethical dualism
of his general train of thought (p. 168) ; the presence of " two con
tradictory theories " is, according to him, an undoubted " fact "
(P- 141).

" Werke," Weirn. ed., 18, p. 640 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, p. 162 :
" Ex meet parte unus Vuicleff, et alter Laurentius Valla, quanquam et
Aucfustinus quern prceteris, meus totuft est." Cp. " Werke," Erl. ed.,
61, 'pp. 101, 103, 107.

3 " Tischreden," ed. Forstemann, 2, p. 60.

4 Cp. " Luthers Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 619, n.

5 Zickendraht, ibid., p. 180 f.

UNFREEDOM & PREDESTINATION 287

In the Disputations of which we have records, he fre
quently reverts to his denial of free-will.

In a Disputation of December 18, 1537, for the sake of debate
the objection is advanced, that there is no purpose in making
good resolutions owing to the will not being free : " Man," says
the opposer, " has no free-will, hence he can make no good
resolutions, and sins of necessity whether he wishes to or not."
The professor's reply runs : " Nego consequentiam. Man, it is
true, cannot of himself alter his inclination to sin ; he has this
inclination and sins willingly, neither under compulsion nor un
willingly. Man's will, not God, is the author of sin."1 On
another occasion, on January 29, 153G, the objector refers to the
opinions of great Churchmen of olden times, that some freedom
of the will exists. The reply is : " What such men say is not
to be accepted as gospel-truth ; they often gave proof of weakness
and stood in need of additional purification by the { remissio
peccatorum.' You youngsters must not get into the habit of
deriding them, yet we esteem Holy Scripture more highly."2 —
In the same year we read the following in the theses of the
School : " It is godless philosophy, and censured by theology,
to assert that ' liberum arbitrium ' exists in man for the forming
of a just judgment and a good intention, or that it is man's
business to choose between good and evil, life and death, etc.
He who speaks thus does not know what man really is, and does
not understand in the least what he is talking about."3

Melanchthon, however, found urgent reasons in the growing
immorality of the young men at the University and the sight of
the evil results in the religious life of the people produced by the
new doctrine of the will and good works to revise what he had
said on free-will in his " Loci Theologici," In the course of time
he took up an altogether different standpoint, coming at last to
acknowledge free-will and a certain co-operation with grace
(" Synergismus ").4 Luther, nevertheless, was loath to break

1 '; Disputationen M. Luthers, 1535-1545," edited for the first time
by Paul Drews, Gottingen, 1895, p. 279 f. 2 Ibid., p. 75.

3 Ibid., p. 92, n. 29 ft'. Drews points out (p. 90) that in the 1538
edition the whole of the theses De homine "are, strange to say, omitted."
Cp. also "Disputationen," p. 11, n. 29 : " lustificati autem sic gratis
turn facinms opera, imo Christus ipse in nobis facit omnia." Also pp.
92, 94, 95, 266, 318, 481. On p. 160 we meet with the drastic ex
pression : The depravation of human, nature by original sin is so
great, " ut suspirare ad Deum non possimus, nedum nos explicare aut
bonum facer e." Hence there is an end to our "liberum arbitrium; sed
restituetur nobis in resurrections mortuorum, ubi rursum collocabimur in
paradisum."

4 Cp. Melanchthon's letter to the Elector August of Saxony, which
will be given in detail later, where he characterises as " stoica " and
" manichcea deliria," on the part of Luther, the view that " all works,
good and bad, in all men, whether good or bad, happened by necessity."
Sucli mad fancies he had rejected " during Luther's lifetime and
afterwards," " Corp. Ref.," 9, p. 766. Likewise, in his " Responsiones

288 THE APOSTASY

with him on account of this divergence in doctrine ; out of
esteem for so indispensable a fellow-worker, he even recom
mended to his hearers the new edition of the " Loci " without
a word about the corrections in question.

But Luther himself never surrendered his favourite idea in
spite of his anxiety and horror at the effect his preaching pro
duced on the people, who seized upon his theory of human help
lessness and the sole action of grace as a pretext for moral
indolence. In 1531 he was again to be heard stating — this time
in a public sermon, a very unusual thing— that man lacks free
will. Here he connects this doctrine with the impossibility of
" keeping the Commandments without the grace of the Spirit."
In Popery they indeed preached, as he himself had also done
at one time, " quod homo habeat liberum arbitrium," to keep the
Commandments by means of his natural powers ; but this was
an error which had grown up even in the time of the Apostles.1 —
As a matter of fact, however, the Church did not teach that
fallen man could, at all times, keep all the Commandments
without grace.

When, in August, 1540, someone said to him : " People are
merely getting worse through this preaching on grace," he
replied : " Still, grace must be preached because Christ has
commanded it ; and though it has been preached for a long
time, yet at the hour of death the people know nothing about it ;
it is to the honour of God that grace should be preached ; and,
though we make the people worse, still God's Word cannot be
set aside. But we also teach the Ten Commandments faith
fully, these must be insisted on frequently and in the right
place."2 The Antinomians had just then attacked the preaching
of the Decalogue on the pretext of Luther's own doctrine regard
ing man's incapacity.

In his " Table-Talk " Luther elsewhere declares it to be his " final
opinion " that " whoever defends man's free-will and says that
it is capable of acting and co-operating in the very least degree
in spiritual matters, has denied Christ."3 Absolute determinism,
or the entire absence of free-will everywhere, is here no longer
expressed. " I admit," he says, " that you have free-will for

ad articulos bavaricce inquisitionis" Melanchthon calls such doctrines
" stoici et manichcei furores," and adds : " Oro iuniores, ut fugiant has
monstruosas opiniones, quce sunt contumeliosce contra Deum et perni-
ciosce moribus. Nam si omnia necessaria sunt, nihil opus est delibera-
tione et diligentia. . . . Saepe homines applaudunt monstruosis
opinionibus tantum quia monstruosce sunt et mirantur non intellectas.
. . . Firmissima veritas est, Deum nee velle peccata nee impellere voluntates
ad peccandum." Melanchthon wrote this after Luther had already
passed away ; he was terrified by the moral results of these " monstrous "
doctrines. " Opp.," Witebergse, 1562, 1, p. 3G9.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 34, 1, p. 1G3, in the first and second set
of notes on the sermon.

2 Mathesius, " Tischreden," p. 177 f., said between August 7 and 24,
from notes taken by Mathesius himself.

8 " Tischreden,'' " Werke," Erl. ed., 58, p. 222.

UNFREEDOM & PREDESTINATION 289

milking the cows, for building a house, etc., but not for anything
further."1 Of spiritual things, however, he says : "Man's free
will does not work or do anything towards his conversion
but merely suffers and is the material upon which the Holy
Ghost works, as the potter fashions the pot out of the clay,
doing this even in those who resist and are unruly like Paul!
But after the Holy Ghost has worked on such a rebellious will]
He renders it pliable so that it wills as He does."2 The example
of those " whose bodies are possessed by the devil, who rends them
and drags them about, rides and drives them," he continues,
shows how little "man's will can do" for his conversion.3—
Johann Aurifaber (1566), the old editor of the " Table-Talk," says
of Luther's statement, referred to above, concerning his " final
opinion " : " There you see, dear Christian brother, that it is a
lie what some say and give out, more particularly the Synergists,
viz. : that the dear Man of God modified in any way his opinion
on free-will, which they term hard because it is directly opposed
to their heresy. And yet they boast of being Luther's disciples ! "<

In his own mind Luther practically denied his doctrine
as often as he struggled with remorse, or sought to overcome
his terrors of conscience. Few men have had to exert their
will with such energy (as we shall have occasion to point
out later, vol. v., xxxii.) to hold their own against inward
unrest. He, the advocate of the servitude of the will, in his
struggles with himself and his better feelings, made his soul the
battlefield of free-will, i.e. of a will vindicating its freedom.

From his artificial position of security he ventures to
stand up vigorously against others, great men even, who
" abused " his doctrine. Count Albert of Mansfeld was one
of those who, according to Luther's account, said of pre
destination and the helplessness of the will : " The Gospel ?
What is predestined must come to pass. Let us then do as
we please. If we are to be saved, we shall be saved," etc.
Luther, therefore, takes him to account in a letter addressed
to him on December 8, 1542. He tells him that he intends
to speak freely, being himself " a native of the county of
Mansfeld." " He, too, had been tormented with such
thoughts or temptations " and had thus been in danger of
hell. " For in the case of silly souls such devilish thoughts
breed despair and cause them to distrust God's grace ; in
the case of brave people, they make them contemners and
enemies of God, who say : let me alone, I shall do as I

1 " Tischreden," " Werke," Erl. ed., 58, p. 222.

1 Ibid., p. 224. 3 Ibid., 225. * Ibid., p. 222.

290 THE APOSTASY

please, for in any case all I do is to no purpose." He does
not forbear to scold the Count for his behaviour, for " with
drawing himself from the Word and the Sacrament," for
" growing cold and set upon Mammon." In the end he is,
however, only able to give him the following questionable
(consolation concerning his doctrine. "It is perfectly true
that what God has determined must certainly take place,"
but there is " a great distinction to be observed " between
the revealed and the secret will of God. He should not
" trouble himself much " about the latter ; for those who do
soon " come to care nothing for the Word of God or the
Sacrament, give themselves up to a wild life, to Mammon,
tyranny and everything evil ; for, owing to such thoughts,
they can have no faith, hope or charity for either God or
man." Instead of this he desires, as he had explained in
his book against Erasmus, that we should simply cling to
the God Who has revealed Himself ; " what He has
promised we must believe, and what He has commanded we
must do." A servant, for instance, does not presume to
seek out " the secret thoughts " of his master before obeying
him. "Has not God the same right to secret knowledge of
His own beyond what He chooses to tell us ? " Some say :
If it is to be, then all will happen in any case according to
God's will ; " of what use, then, is baptism, Holy Scripture
and every other creature to us ? If God wills it, He can
surely do it without all that."1

At that time the report of such frivolous talk among the
great ones led him to broach the subject in the lectures on
Genesis which he happened to be delivering.2 Here, if we
may trust the reporter, he reverts to the doctrine he had
defended in his " De servo arbitrio," viz. that all things
happen of entire necessity (" esse omnia absoluta et neces-
saria ").3 He retracts nothing, but merely says, that he had

1 " Briefe," ed. De Wette, 5, p. 512 ff.

2 " Opp. Lat. exeg.," G, p. 290-300. Cp. on this passage, from a
lecture published from notes, Kostlin, " Luthers Theologie," 22, p. 6 f.,
where he very aptly draws attention to the points which Luther here
(as elsewhere) evades: (1) "Whether faith is rendered inwardly
possible to every man by the will and action of God ? " (2) " Why
does God fail to instil faith into^so many ? " (3) " How is final per
severance assured in the elect ?

3 " The enigmas of predestination were in his case in the last in
stance inextricably bound up with deterministic ideas— a fact not
unimportant for the fate of his predestinarian ideas, for instance, in
the hands of Melanchthon." F. Loofs, " Dogmengesch.," p. 763. Ibid.,

UNFREEDOM & PREDESTINATION 291

emphasised the necessity of paying attention only to the
revealed God ; in this artifice he finds a means of preventing
any frivolous abuse of the theory of predestination, any
despair or recourse to the complaint " I cannot believe."

In another letter he gives encouragement, no less doubtful
in character, to an unknown person, who, in the anxiety
caused by his apprehension of being predestined to hell,
had applied to him. Luther boldly re-affirms the existence
of such absolute predestination : " God rejected a number
of men and elected and predestined others to everlasting
life before the foundation of the world, such is the truth."
" He whom He has rejected cannot be saved, even though
he should perform all the works of the Saints ; such is the
irrevocable nature of the Divine sentence. But do you gaze
only upon the Majesty of the Lord Who elects, that you
may attain to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ."
In Christ, he proceeds, we have that revealed Majesty of
God, Who wills to save all who believe in Christ ; " whom He
has predestined to salvation, He has also called by the
gospel, that he may believe and be justified by faith."1—
Yet, strangely enough, this letter also contains a sentence
which denies absolute predestination to hell, the only such
denial known to have been made by Luther.2 The text of
the letter has, however, not yet been verified critically.
The words in question appear to be a quotation from
Augustine added by another hand in extenuation of
Luther's doctrine.

p. 757. " He was convinced that lie was merely advocating Paul's
doctrine of grace. Yet what he expounds is a deterministic doctrine of
predestination which shrinks from no consequences, not even from
attributing the Fall directly to God." Loofs points out, that, accord
ing to Luther, Adam fell because " the Spirit [of God] did not render
him ^obedient," and quotes the " De servo arbitrio" " Opp. Lat.
var.," 7, p. 207 : " Non potuit velle bonum . . . id est obedientiam, quia
spiritus illam non addebat" The same author shows (p. 766 f.) how
the above ideas remain with Luther even at a later date, and cause
him to represent the faith which, in man, is coincident with justifica
tion, as " effected by God simply in accordance with His Eternal
Providence." " We can, however, understand how Luther, in his
sermons to the people, prefers to state the case as though faith were
the condition demanded of man for the forgiveness of his sins and the
receiving of the Spirit " ; the fact is he " frequently leaves his pre-
destinarian ideas on one side."

1 " Brief e," ed De Wette, 6, p. 427, no date.

2 Kostlin, " Luthers Theologie," 22, p. 80 f., where he states :
" This contradicts all that we otherwise know of him."

292 THE APOSTASY

Although Luther did not put forth his rigid doctrine of
predestination to hell either in his popular or strictly theo
logical writings, yet, to the end of his life, he never sur
rendered it ; that he " never retracted it " is emphasised
even in Kostlin and Kawcrau's Life of Luther.1

Of his book against Erasmus Luther spoke long after as
the only one, save the Catechism, which he would be sorry
to see perish.2 In reply to the question put by Caspar
Aquila, a preacher, why so many who heard the Word
did not believe, he refused to ascribe this to free-will, and
as regards the temptations to despair, which the same
enquirer complained were the result of his thoughts on
predestination, Luther insisted, that God had not chosen to
reveal His secret will (" maiestas lucis illius occultata et
non significata est "), hence the need to turn away resolutely
from such thoughts and to defy this " greatest of all tempta
tions, truly a devilish one." He refuses to withdraw even
the proposition, that all things happen of necessity.3 In his
later years he is fond of speaking of the power of sin over
man's interior, and though he does not allude so decidedly
or so frequently to man's " absolute and entire dependence
upon God's Omnipotence," yet he has by no means relin
quished the idea. Thus the " difference between his earlier
and later years " is one only of degree, i.e. he merely suc
ceeded in keeping his theory more in the background.4

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 6G4.

2 To Capito at Strasburg, July 9, 1537, " Brief wechsel," 11, p. 47 :
" Magis cuperem eos (libros meos) omnes devoratos. Nullum enim
agnosco meum iustum librum, nisi forte De servo arbitrio et Catechismum"
In the " Tischreden," ed. Forstemann, 3, p. 418, Luther says, that
Erasmus had " not refuted " his work " De servo arbitrio,'" and
would " never be able to do so for all eternity."

3 To Aquila, October 21, 1528 (?), " Briefwechsel," 7, p. 6. In the
Schmalkalden Articles, 1537 (3, 1), Luther asserts that it is utterly
erroneous to say " hominem habere liberum arbitrium faciendi bonum
et omittendi malum, et contra omittendi bonum et faciendi malum"
After enumerating other errors on sin he concludes : " Talia et similia
portenta orta sunt ex inscitia et ignorantia peccati et Christi Servatoris
nostri, suntque vere et mere ethnica dogmata, quce tolerare non possumus.
Si enim ista approbantur, frustra Christus mortuus est," etc. " Die
symbolischen Bvicher der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche," ed.
Miiller-Kolde10, p. 311.

* Kostlin, " Luthers Theologle," 22, pp. 124 and 82. In the last
passage Kostlin attempts to base " Luther's reticence " on a certain
" conviction " which he does not describe more particularly and which
it is difficult to recognise ; he attributes to Luther " a purer, more
resigned readiness to listen to the other side." Yet he had remarked

UNFREEDOM & PREDESTINATION 293

The controversy with Erasmus did not cease with the
appearance of Luther's book, on the contrary. Apart from
the question itself, the injustice done to the eminent
scholar, and still more to the Church, by the arrant per
version of his opponent's words to which Luther descended

previously : " From all that we know with certainty of Luther, it is
plain that he stuck to his earlier views as to the hidden God and
Divine predestination. Nor does Luther make any attempt to solve
the difficulty, which must appear to us a contradiction ; he simply
discourages reflection on the subject." M. Staube (" Das Verhaltnis der
menschhchen Willensfreiheit zur Gotteslehre bei Luther und Zwingli,"
Zurich, 1894) writes with less indulgence than Kostlin on Luther's
doctrine. This theologian, an admirer of Zwingli, says bluntly : Luther's
doctrine of predestination and the lack of free-will " leads to the
destruction of all evangelical belief, not only of the personal assurance
of salvation but also of Holy Scripture, which itself knows nothing of
an arbitrary and faithless God in the matter of man's salvation "
(p. 30). " What then is left of Luther's Deity ? " " A Divine Person
Who dispenses His grace and mercy according to His mood " (p. 37).
God appears and acts as a blind, naked force, fortuna, fatum,"
because what He does is " beyond good and evil " (p. 38). " Why
invent the fable of God's justice and holiness ? . . . We do nothing,
God works all in all. . . . This religion, which is the logical outcome
of Luther's work ' De servo arbitrio,' is surely not Christianity but
Materialism " ; only the name is wanting for morality and law to
become " foolish fancies " (p. 39). Diametrically opposed to this are
the explanations of certain of Luther's modem theological admirers,
who not only pay homage to the author of " De servo arbitrio " on
account of his true piety, but see in Erasmus's vindication of free-will
mere frivolous Pelagianism. Adolf Harnack, in the fourth edition of
his " Dogmengeschichte," 3, p. 841, says : " Rightly the ' Diatribe '
is looked upon as the masterpiece of Erasmus, yet it is an altogether
secular, and, at bottom, irreligious work. Luther, on the other hand,
insists on the fundamental fact of Christian experience. On this
rests his doctrine of predestination, which is simply the expression of the
Omnipotence of the grace of God." With his doctrine of predestina
tion and the enslaved will, and his treatment of the Deus absconditus,
he " gave back religion to religion." In the Weimar ed. of Luther's
works (18, p. 593), Harnack's opinion is accepted and (p. 595) we are
told that Luther " refuted in a masterly fashion the obscure and un
intelligible definition given by Erasmus [of free-will]." Luther's work
appears to the author of the Preface to the " De servo arbitrio," in
this edition, as " a real achievement " (p. 596), and he quotes with
satisfaction A. Ritschl's opinion, that Luther, its writer, in his sove
reign certainty, did not shrink from the conlradictio in adiecto. In the
" Deutsch-evangel. Blatter " (p. 528, n. 1 [reprint, p. 14]), G. Kawerau
states that Luther asserted " with relentless logic man's inability to
turn to God, and did not shrink from the harshest predestinarian
expressions, phrases, indeed, which gave great trouble to Lutherans
at a later date, and which they would gladly have seen expunged from
his writings that Calvin's followers might not appeal to them. And
yet we agree with Harnack," etc. (then follow Harnack's words as
given above). Kostlin concludes : " The death of all religion, as K.
Miiller (' Kirchengesch.,' 2, p. 307) rightly remarks, is to take our own
works and doings into account."

294 THE APOSTASY

in order to stamp him and the Catholic doctrine of the past
as altogether un-Christian, could not be allowed to pass
unchallenged. It has been admitted, even by Protestants,
as Luther's constant policy in this work to make Erasmus
say, that, in order to arrive at salvation it was sufficient to
use free-will and that grace was unnecessary, and then to
conclude that the Holy Ghost and Christ were shamefully
set aside by Catholics. This Luther did (as Kattenbusch
says) " by a certain, of course bona fide, perversion of his
[Erasmus's] words, or by a process of forced reasoning
which can seldom, if indeed ever, be regarded as justified."1

4. New Views on the Secular Authorities
" Since the time of the Apostles 110 doctor or scribe, no
theologian or jurist has confirmed, instructed and comforted
the consciences of the secular Estates so well and lucidly as
I have done."2

" Even had I, Dr. Martin, taught or done no other good,
save to enlighten and instruct the secular government and
authorities, yet for this cause alone they ought to be
thankful to and well-disposed towards me, for they all of
them, even my worst enemies, know that in Popery such
understanding of the secular power was not merely dis
countenanced, but actually trampled under foot by the
stinking, lousy priests, monks and mendicant friars."3

" In Popery," as hundreds of documents attest, the
people were taught, as they always had been, that the
secular government was divinely appointed and altogether
independent in its own sphere ;4 that it was nevertheless to
govern according to the dictates of law and justice ; that,
far from neglecting it, it was to promote the eternal welfare
of the subject ; finally, that it was bound to recognise
the Catholic Church as the supreme guardian, of both
the natural and religious law. Government and secular

1 Kattenbusch, " Luthers Lehre vom unfreien Willen," p. 28, where
in proof of such perversions he refers to " Opp. Lat. var.," 7, pp. 191 seq.,
208, 213, 224, 231, 238, 287, 303, 324, 330, 354, adding at the end
an " etc." which is full of meaning.

2 Luther, " Verantwortung der auffgelegten Auffrur," 1533,
"Werke," Erl. ed., 31, p. 236. 3 Ibid.

4 The theories of some theologians on the direct authority of the
Church to interfere in secular matters do not here come into considera
tion.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 295

Estate could work in all freedom and prosperity. All that
Luther taught rightly concerning the secular power had
been proclaimed long before by the voice of the Church and
put into practice.1 As to the new and peculiar doctrines he
taught in the first period of his career, they must now be
examined.

A curious changeableness and want of logic are apparent,
not merely in his way of expressing himself, but also in his
views. This was due in part to the fact that his mental
abilities lent themselves less to the statement and defence
of general theories than to controversy on individual points,
but still more to the influence on his doctrine exercised by
the changes proceeding in the outer world.

The main point with him in the matter of the secular
authorities was, whether they might demand obedience from
him and his followers in matters concerning the new
doctrine, i.e. whether they might compel them to forsake
the innovations, or whether the Lutheran party had the
right to resist the authorities and the Emperor, even by the
use of force. Another question was whether Catholics
could be left free to practise their religion in localities where
the authorities were on Luther's side. Were the authorities
bound to respect Catholic convictions, or had the Lutheran
Prince or magistrate the right to force the refractory to
accept the innovations ? Finally, Luther's relations with
those parties within the new faith who differed from him
raised fresh questions : Were the evangelical authorities to
tolerate these sectarians, or were they to repress any
deviation from the Wittenberg doctrine ?

To formulate any definite answers to such questions was
rendered still more difficult in Luther's case by the fact that
prudence compelled him to exercise great reticence and
caution in his utterances on many such points.2 On the
one hand he might easily have spoilt his whole work in the

1 Fr. v. Bezold says : " Luther claimed the merit of having exalted
the true understanding of the secular power in a way that no one else
had done since the time of the Apostles. . . . The indefensibility of
this and similar claims has long since been demonstrated " (" Kultur
der Gegenwart," 2, 5, 1, Berlin, 1908, p. 60).

2 Some of his reservations were, however, of doubtful practical
value. K. Holl, " Luther und das landesherrliche Kirchenregiment,"
1911 (p. 1 ff.). shows how Luther urges the secular power to make
an end of the " thievery " of the clerics, and how he ascribes to this
power the right of summoning Councils, though only " when needful."

296 THE APOSTASY

eyes of his cautious sovereign had he proclaimed openly
the right of his friends among the nobles to resist the
Emperor even by force. On the other, many would have
been repelled had he laid down the principle of intolerance
towards Zwinglians and Anabaptists as strongly at the
commencement as he did later. In considering his doctrine
concerning the secular authorities and the obedience due
to them, we must simply take his utterances in their
historical sequence, at the same time keeping a watchful
eye on his actual behaviour in which we shall find at once
their explanation and justification.1 Only in this way
shall we arrive at a clear estimation of his tangled ideas on
secular authority and religious toleration.2

As to his varying theories,3 at the outset and during the
first stage of his revolt against the Church, Luther was
fond of launching out into very questionable and far-reach
ing statements concerning the secular authority, as appears,
for instance, in his tract addressed in 1520 to the German
Nobility. Where the authorities are on the side of the
Evangel, their power is so great that they may exercise
their office " unhindered," •" even against Pope, bishop,
parson, monk or nun or whatever else there be " ; in that
case, too, the secular authorities are perfectly justified in
summoning clerics to answer before their tribunal.4 " St.
Paul says to all Christians," Luther argues, " ' Let every
soul ' — hence, I suppose, even the Pope himself — ' be subject
to higher powers, for they bear not the sword in vain.' . . .
St. Peter, too, foretold that men would arise who would
despise the temporal rulers, which has indeed come to pass
through the rights of the clergy.*'5 In such wise does he
charge the past.

But now, he continues (owing to his efforts), " the secular
power has become a member of the ghostly body, and,
though its office is temporal, yet it has been raised to a

1 This will be done in the present work as occasion arises. See
more particularly vol. iii., xv. 2 and 3, and vol. v., xxxv. 1 and 2.

2 See vol. iv., xxviii.

3 For a Protestant, criticism of them see Erich Brandenburg,
" Luthers Anschauung von Staat und Gesellschaft," 1901 ("Schriften
des Vereins fur Reformationsgesch.," Hft. 70), and Karl Miiller,
" Kirche Gemeinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther," 1910.

4 " To the Christian nobility," 1520, " Werke," Weim. ed., 6,
p. 409 ; Erl. ed., 21, p. 284. 5 Ibid.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 297

spiritual dignity ; its work may now be done freely and
unhindered among all the members of the whole body,
punishing and compelling, where guilt deserves it or neces
sity demands, regardless of Pope, bishop or priest, let them
threaten and ban as they please."1 It is clear how the
interests of the " reformation " he has planned impel him
to extend the rights of the secular power, even in the
spiritual domain, over all who resist.

In his work " On the secular power," of March, 1523, we
find an entirely different language.

Here he insists with great emphasis on the fact that the
secular authorities have no right to interfere in the spiritual
domain. The explanation of his change of attitude is
that here he is thinking of the Catholic authorities who
were placing obstacles in the way of the spread of the
Lutheran apostasy. His teaching is : The secular power
exists and is ordained by God, but it has no concern with
spiritual matters, may not place difficulties in the way of
the preaching of the " Word," and has no right to curtail the
interests of the Evangel, by prohibiting Luther's books, by
threatening excommunication, or by hindering the new
worship. He thus sets up general principles which are
quite at variance with the line of action he himself constantly
pursued where the authorities were favourable to his cause.

His teaching he expounds in this way : Temporal rulers
are, it is true, established in the \vorld by the will of God
and must be obeyed ; but their sword must not invade a
domain which does not belong to them ; it is not their
business to render men pious, and they have nothing what
ever to do with the good, their only object being to prevent
outward crimes and to maintain outward peace as " God's
task-masters and executioners."2 He speaks almost as
though there were two kingdoms of men, one, of the wicked
and those who are not " Christians," coming under the rule
of the authorities and belonging to the kingdom of the
world ; the other, the kingdom of God, whose members are
not subject to earthly laws and authorities ; such are " all
true believers in and beneath Christ."

Not only could this curious dualism be objected to on the

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 410-285.

2 " On the secular power," 1523, "Werke," Weim. ed., 11, p. 268 ;
Erl. ed., 22, p. 89.

298 THE APOSTASY

score of want of clearness, but the assertion that the secular
power was merely an " executioner " for the punishment
of outward crime actually tended to abase and degrade it.
The olden Church had, on the contrary, exalted the secular
power by permitting its representatives to share in many
ways in the spiritual work of the Church, and by desiderat
ing the harmonious co-operation of the two powrers, spiritual
and secular, in the interests of the ultimate end of mankind.

The singular attitude adopted by Luther is to be explained,
as hinted above, by the fact that, in his work " On the secular
power," he has allowed himself to be so largely influenced by
polemical regard for the Catholic authorities, whom he describes
as those blind, wretched people, the Emperor and the wise
Princes and tyrants generally. He inveighs against the " clever
squires who seek to uproot heresy," and against " our Christian
Princes, who defend the faith." The authorities with whom he
is here concerned consist almost exclusively of persons who,
" instead of allowing God's Word to have free course," would
fain impose by compulsion the faith of bygone days upon their
subjects, thus creating " liars by constraint." They " command
men to feel with the Pope^" but they act " without the clear
Word of God " and must therefore necessarily perish in their
" perverted understanding."1

In the work in question he nevertheless seeks to establish a
general theory, though, partly owing to its being forcibly shaped
to meet the special needs of the case, partly because it was based
on a certain kind of pseudo-mysticism, the theory remains open
to many objections.

The secular power (more particularly where it is Catholic)
cannot exercise any authority in spiritual matters, hence, he
says, " these two governments must be carefully kept asunder,
and both be preserved, the one to render men pious, the other to
safeguard outward peace and prevent evil deeds."2 In speaking
as he does here and elsewhere in this work of the " two govern
ments " he is, however, very far from acknowledging an inde
pendent ecclesiastical or spiritual government such as had
existed in Catholicism. What he called spiritual government
was " without law or command," and merely " the inward
sovereignty of the Word," " Christ's spiritual dominion " where
souls are ruled by the Evangel ; there the Word of God is
furthered by teaching and the sacraments, by which minds are
led and heresy vanquished ; " for Christians must be ruled by
faith, not by outward works. . . . Those who do not believe
are not Christians and do not belong to Christ's kingdom, but to
the kingdom of the world, and must therefore be compelled and
governed by the sword." " Christians do all what is good without

1 Cp. ibid., Erl. ed., pp. 83-6, 88, 89, 91-3. 2 Ibid., p. 69.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 299

compulsion and God's Word suffices them."1 — Hence it is certain
that he does not look upon this kingdom of the Christian as a
real government, seeing that it implies no jurisdiction. The
power to make and enforce laws in this world belongs only to
the secular authorities. They alone form on earth a real govern
ment. " Priests and bishops," too, have neither " supremacy
nor power."2

True believers are subject to " no laws and no sword,"3 for
they stand in need of none. For this reason Christ commands us
not to make use of the sword and to refrain from violence. " The
words of Christ are clear and peremptory : ' resist not evil ' "
(Matt. v. 39). These words and the whole passage concerning
the blow on the cheek, the Sophists (i.e. the Schoolmen) had
indeed interpreted as a mere " counsel." In reality, however,
they constitute a command, though only for " Christians " ; " the
sword has no place among Christians, hence you cannot use it
upon or among Christians, since they need it not."4 He is here
addressing Duke Johann, the Elector's brother, who sympathised
with his cause and to whom, in the Preface, the work is dedicated.
He goes on to tell him that the Christian ruler nevertheless must
not lay aside the sword on account of what has just been said,
for in point of fact there are few such " Christians," wherefore
the sword was still " useful and necessary everywhere." " The
world cannot and will riot do without " authority. Even with
the sword you still remain " true to the gospel," he tells this
Christian Prince, and still hold fast to Christ's Word, " so that
you would gladly offer the other cheek to the smiter and give
up your cloak after your coat, if the matter affected yourself or
your cause."5 Every Christian likewise must comply with the

1 Cp. ibid., Erl. eel., p. 94.

2 Ibid., p. 93. Whereas Luther's other ideas to be described changed
considerably in later years, this one of an " abrogated spiritual govern
ment " always remained, though with some modifications. According
to the Preface to his " Instruction for Visitations " (1528) and the
" Instruction " itself, " the visitors have of themselves no official
public authority for holding the Visitation, but must be conversant
with the Bible, find therein their qualification and be appointed by
the Elector, in the name of the preachers, to hold the Visitation. la
this quality they are unable to exercise any sort of force or compulsion,
this being reserved to the Elector, but, as representing him, they also
share in his secular power." " It is part of the duty of the authorities "
to " establish and regulate the Matrimonial Courts " ; the secular
authorities are bound where the work of the pastors has been of no
avail, to take their " own means for the spiritual and temporal pro
tection of the Christianity of the country, against scandal and false
doctrine," and to make God's Word the only public and authorised
code and authority. For the spiritual government consists exclusively
" in the Word and the preaching-office, and can only penetrate into
the heart by means of the Word and the work of the pastor." Karl
Miiller thus sums up the teaching of the documents in question in
" Kirche, Gemeinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther," 1910, p. 74 f.

3 " Werke," ibid., p. 69. 4 " Werke," ibid., p. 72 f.
5 Ib id., p. 73.

300 THE APOSTASY

command to relinquish his rights, " allow himself to be insulted
and disgraced," but in his neighbour's cause he must insist upon
what is just, even to having recourse to the sword of authority.1

In this way he fancies, as he says in the Dedication, that he
is the first to instruct " the Princes and secular authorities to
remain Christians with Christ as their Lord, and yet not to make
mere counsels out of Christ's commands " ; but the " Sophists "
" have made a liar of Christ and placed Him in the wrong in order
that the Princes may be honoured. . . . Their poisonous error
has made its way throughout the world, so that everyone looks
upon Christ's teaching as counsels for the perfect and not as
obligatory commands, binding on all."

Should the secular power exceed its limits and the rulers
demand what is against conscience, then God is to be obeyed
rather than man.2 He now comes to the new Evangel. If the
authorities require you " to believe this or the other," " or order
you to put away certain books, you must reply, ... In this
respect you are acting like tyrants ; you are going too far and
commanding where you have neither right nor power, etc.
Should they thereupon seize your property and punish you for
your disobedience, you should esteem yourself happy and thank
God."3 In the County of Meissen, in Bavaria, and in the March,
where the authorities required, under penalties, that his transla
tion of the New Testament should be given up, he says, " the
subjects are not to surrender a single leaflet, nor even a letter,
if they do not wish to imperil their salvation, for whoever does
such a thing, surrenders Christ into the hands of Herod." They
are, however, not to offer violent resistance, but to " suffer."*

The Imperial Edicts issued against the innovations led him to
speak more fully of the interference of the secular authorities on
behalf of religious doctrine generally. " God," he declares, " will
permit none to rule over the soul but Himself alone. . . . Hence,
when the secular power takes upon itself to make laws for the
soul it is trespassing upon God's domain and merely seducing
and corrupting souls. We are determined to make this so plain
that everyone can grasp it, and that our squires, Princes and
bishops may see what fools they are when with laws and com
mandments they try to force the people to believe this or that."5
Such meddling of the authorities with matters which did not

1 A Utopian idealism, certainly unknown in the earlier ages,
is apparent in the following, taken from Luther's writing referred to
above : "A Christian must be ready to suffer all kinds of evil and
injustice . . . and not to defend himself before the law. . . . But in
the case of others he may and ought to seek for revenge, justice, pro
tection, and assistance, and do his best to this end according as he
is able. The authorities, therefore, ought, either of their own initiative
or at the instigation of others, to help and protect him without any
complaining, appealing, or effort on his part. But where this is not
done he must allow himself to be fleeced and oppressed and not offer
any resistance, according to the words of Christ " (p. 78).

2 Cp. ibid., p. 87 ff. 3 Ibid., p. 89.
* Ibid. 5 Ibid., p. 82.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 301

concern them was, so he says, due to the " commandments of
men," and was therefore utterly at variance with " God's Word."
God would have " our faith founded only on His Divine Word,"
but what the worldly authorities were after " was uncertain,
or rather, certainly, displeasing [to God], because there was no
clear Word of God in its favour." " Such things are enjoined by
the devil's apostles, not by the Church, for the Church com
mands nothing save when she knows for certain that it is accord
ing to the Word of God. ... As for them, they will find it a hard
job to prove that the decrees of the Councils are the Word of
God."1

It is well worth our while to consider the following general
grounds he assigns for his repudiation of all interference of the
authorities in matters of faith, for, not long after, his position will
be very different. He declares that, speaking generally, the
authorities have " no power over souls " ; the soul is removed
altogether from the hands of men and " placed in the hands of
God alone." The ruler has just as little control over a soul as he
has over the moon. " Who would not be accounted crazy who
commanded the moon to shine at his pleasure ? " Besides,
Pope, Bishops and Schoolmen are " without God's Word," " and
yet they wish to be termed Christian Princes, which may God
prevent ! " Further proofs follow from the Bible, where we
read, that God alone knows and governs all things, and from the
fact, that " every man's salvation depends on his belief, and he
must accordingly look to it that he believes aright " ; " faith is
a voluntary act to which no one can be forced, nay, it is a Divine
work of the Spirit." Moreover, "it is a vain and impossible
thing " to compel the heart, and God will bring to a dreadful
pass the purblind rulers who are now attempting it. 2

His conclusion is that " the secular power must be content to
wait and allow people to believe this or the other as they please
and are able, and not to compel any man by force."3

" Heresy can never be withstood by force," he says further on.
" Something else is needed. . . . God's Word must here do the
work, and if it fails, then the secular power will certainly not
achieve it, though it should fill the world with blood. . . . God's
Word alone can be effective." Hence the squires should learn
at last to cease " destroying ' heresy,' and allow God's Word
which enlightens the heart " to have its way.4

Nevertheless, he admits that it is the right of the bishops to
" restrain heretics." " The bishops must do this, for it apper
tains to their office though not to the Princes " — a theory which
Luther persistently refused to see carried to its logical conclusion.
He also admits, that " no one has a right to command souls
unless he knows how to show them the way to heaven," — though
here, again, he would have denied the consequence which Catholics
gathered from this truth, when they urged that the measures

1 Cp. ibid., p. 83. 2 Ibid., p. 84 ff.

3 Ibid., p. 85. * Ibid., p. 90 f.

302 THE APOSTASY

adopted by the Empire against the innovations were for the
safeguarding of the road to heaven, which an infallible Church
points out to mankind. In Luther's opinion there no longer
existed any Church able to " point out the way to heaven "
without danger of error. "This no man can do," he exclaims
in the same passage,1 " but God alone." It was hopeless for
Catholics to argue that the Church did so only in God's name,
and under explicit promise of His assistance. Facts are there to
prove that, at the very time when Luther was proclaiming his
theories of religious toleration, he was setting them at nought in
the most outrageous fashion where Catholics were concerned ;
he was, however, careful to veil his invitation to abolish their
faith and worship under the specious pretext of demolishing
abuses, sacrilege and the Kingdom of Antichrist. Nor was it
long before he invoked the help of the secular power against
sectarians within his own camp.

Where, towards the close of the work " On the secular power,"
Luther passes on to show how Princes, who are " desirous of
acting as Christian Princes and lords," ought to administer
their authority, he reaches a less controversial subject and is
able to expound in that popular, imaginative language which he
knew so well how to handle certain wholesome views which had
already found expression in earlier times. In the forcible
exhortations he here gives, rulers desirous of profiting might
have found much to learn. Whoever wishes to be a Christian
Prince must above all " lay aside the notion that he is to rule
and govern by violence." " Justice must reign at all times and
in everything." His whole mind must be set on " making him
self of use and service to his subjects." Secondly, " he must
keep an eye on the Jacks-in-office and on his councillors, and
behave towards them in such a way as not to despise any of them,
while at the same time not confiding in any one man to such an
extent as to leave everything to him." " Thirdly, he must take
care to deal rightly with evil-doers." " He must not follow those
advisers and fire-eaters who urge and tempt him to make war."
" Fourthly — what ought really to have been placed first — . . .
the ruler must behave towards his God as a Christian, sub
mitting himself to Him with entire confidence, and praying for
wisdom to rule well."2

Concerning the latter point, viz. the attitude of the ruler
towards God and towards religion, which, according to Luther,
really should come first, the exhortations of earlier days addressed
to the rulers, hardly ever failed to represent the protection of the
Kingdom of God as the noblest task of any sovereign, who looked
beyond temporal things to the world to come. Luther himself
at a later period commends the protection and extension of the
Kingdom of God most earnestly and eloquently to all rulers who
followed the new faith, and instances the example of the Jewish

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 11, p. 268 f. ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 90.
8 Ibid., p. 94 ff.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 303

Kings and Jewish priesthood.1 Here, however, where he is full
of other interests, we find not a word of the kind. On the subject
of their relation to God, all he does is to remind the Princes in one
sentence of the need of " true confidence and heartfelt prayer,"
and, having done so, he breaks off and hurriedly brings the work
to an end. In this circumstance, in itself insignificant, Luther's
violent breach with tradition is very apparent. Here, where, for
the first time in any work of his, he puts forth his views as to
what the conduct of secular authorities should be, in dealing with
their relations to faith and worship, he has not a word in support
of the recommendation to protect religion, albeit so justifiable
and hitherto so usual ; he could not give such a recommendation,
because a few pages before he had laid it down that " the secular
government has laws which do not extend beyond life and
property and what is external on earth." " The secular power
must leave people free to believe this or that as they please " ;
" the blind, miserable wretches [the Catholic Princes] see not
how vain and impossible a thing they are undertaking."2 —
Nowhere in the writing, as a Protestant theological critic re
marks, " does the idea appear that a Christian ruler has the right
or the duty to pass beyond the limits of his temporal jurisdiction
and to concern himself with ecclesiastical matters."3

It is quite remarkable how Luther reduces the action of
the secular power and the rights of the authorities to a
judicial constraint to be exercised against evil-doers, or, as
he says, to the task of a mere executioner.

For the explanation of these ideas on the secular power,
two points are of especial importance : In the first place,
Luther was at that time somewhat disappointed with the
Princes and the nobles. In his work " To the Nobility " he
had urged them to make an end of the Papal rule, and now
he was vexed to see that, almost to a man, they had

1 " The main work which Luther required of the Princes has always
been regarded by Lutheran rulers as their first duty, viz. to be the
gxiardians and protectors of the Evangel and the true faith in their
lands, to repress all public evil arid falsehood and to provide for the
regular ministry of the Word." Karl Miiller, " Kirche, Gemeinde und
Obrigkeit nach Luther," p. 81 f.

2 " Werke," Erl. ed., p. 85.

3 P. Drews, as above, p. 193, n. 2, p. 74. Drews adds : " But it
would be premature to conclude from the above that this thought,
because not expressed here, is altogether excluded." Yet it would
appear to be excluded by the reference to the bishops, who alone were
to trouble themselves concerning any danger to the Church through
heresy (p. 301). How Luther, nevertheless, makes the duty of the
Lutheran rulers to protect religion the foundation first of his practice,
and then of his theory, is shown in the next section, also in vol. iii.,
xv. 2, and vol. v., xxxv. 2.

304 THE APOSTASY

declined to do anything, whilst he himself was under the
ban of the Empire. Secondly, it was his idea of the inward
action of the Evangel upon souls and his conception of a
sort of invisible Church, which induced him to exclude
altogether the secular power from the spiritual domain, and
to speak in exaggerated and disparaging terms of the
" outward actions " with which alone it was concerned.
In those years, when he was still to some extent under the
influence of his early pseudo-mysticism, he was fond of
picturing to himself the community of believers as an
assembly of all those who had been awakened by " the
Word," and who, in spirit, were far above the compulsion
of any earthly regulations. Thus, with him, the Church,
in comparison with the political community, tended to
evaporate into a mere union of souls, scarcely perceptible to
earthly eyes.1

To us now it is clear that, in spite of every effort to the
contrary, the new Church was bound in process of time to
become entirely dependent on the secular power, first and
foremost in its outward administration. Luther's spiritual
Church could not endure but for the support of the authori
ties.

It is notorious that the tendency to make his Church
depend upon the secular authorities, as soon as they had
embraced his cause, was part of Luther's plan from the
very outset. A State Church corresponded with his require
ments. However much at the commencement Luther
might emphasise the congregational ideal, tracing the whole
authority of the freshly formed communities back to it,
viz. to the priestly powers inherent in all the faithful, yet, as
occasion arises, he falls back on the one external authority
left standing, now that he has definitely set aside one of the
two powers recognised of old.

In the sixteenth century the Church was confronted not
only by official Protestantism, but by various other oppos
ing bodies, Anabaptists, fanatics and anti-Trinitarians. If
among all these only the Wittenberg, Zurich and Geneva
groups " were able to assert themselves, this," says a recent
Protestant theologian, Paul Wernle, " was not due, or at
least not solely due, to the fact, that they were more true
or more profound than the others, but that they accommo-
1 See above, p. 104ff.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 305

dated themselves better to existing conditions, and, above
all, to the State."1 Karl Sell, a Protestant professor of
theology, speaks in the same strain : " Where the Reforma
tion gained the day it did so with the help of the secular
power, of the Princes or republics and, in every instance, the
Reformation itself strengthened the power of these author
ities. Upon them devolved the new office of caring . . .
for religion. . . . Thus the duty of providing for wholesome
doctrine and right faith, for the doctrine which alone could
be pleasing to God, became one of the principal concerns of
the rulers ; hence arose the strict adherence to orthodoxy,
the exclusion of erroneous teaching from the confines of
the State, in short, the theological police system which
prevailed in all Protestant countries till the middle of the
seventeenth century."2

The tendency to seek an alliance with the secular powers
did not, however, hinder Luther from degrading the authori
ties and the Princes in the eyes of the people in the most
relentless and public manner. In his mortification at the
want of response to his call he allowed himself to be carried
away to strictures and predictions which greatly excited the
masses.

In his work " On the secular power " he asks : " Would you
learn why God has decreed such a terrible fate to befall the
worldly Princes ? " His answer is : " God has delivered them
up to a perverted mind and means to make an end of them, just
as in the case of the clerical Princes. . . . Secular lords should
rule over the land and the people in outward matters. This they
neglected. All they could do was to rob and oppress the people,
heaping tax upon tax and rate upon rate." He reminds his
readers that the Romans, too, acted unjustly in things both
spiritual and temporal — until " they were destroyed. There
now ! there you see God's judgment on the great braggarts."3 —
" There are few Princes," he says, in the same writing, " who
are not regarded as either fools or knaves. This is because they
prove themselves to be such, and the common people are grow
ing to understand it ; scorn for Princes, which God calls ' con-
temptum,' prevails among the peasants and common folk ; and
I fear there will be no stopping this unless the Princes behave as

1 " Die Renaissance des Christentums im 16. Jahrhundert," 1904,
p. 36.

2 " Der Zusammenhang von Reformation und politischer Freiheit "
(" Theolog. Arbeiten aus dem rhein. wiss. Predigerverein," N. F., Hft.
12, Tubingen, 1910, pp. 44-79, 54).

3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 22, p. 86 seq.

306 THE APOSTASY

beseems Princes and begin again to govern reasonably and
justly. Your tyranny and wantonness cannot be endured much
longer."1 His chief grievance here and elsewhere is, that the
rulers do not allow the gospel to be freely preached, but their
" dancing, hunting, races, games and such-like worldly pleasures "
he also holds up to execration. " Who does not know that in
heaven a Prince is like a hare ? " i.e. it would take many beaters
to locate one.2 " I do not say these things in the hope that the
secular Princes will profit " ; it is not indeed absolutely im
possible for a Prince to be a good Christian, " but such a case is
rare." A Prince who is at the same time a Christian is " one of
the greatest wonders and a most precious sign of the potency of
Divine Grace."3 — It has been already pointed out that, in seek
ing the causes of the Peasant-War, we must take into account
these inflammatory discourses of Luther's to the people and his
imperious demand for freedom to preach the " Evangel."

In his " Exhortation to Peace " of the year 1525, he addresses
" the Princes and Lords," spiritual and temporal, and tells them
they have themselves to blame for the seditious risings of the
peasants : " We have no one on earth to thank for such disorder
and revolt but you, Princes and Lords, and more particularly
you, blind bishops and mad priests " ; you are not merely enemies
of the Evangel, but " rob and tax in order to live in luxury and
state, until the poor, common people neither can nor will bear it
any longer. The sword is at your throat," etc. ; here he is
speaking to the " tyrannical and raging authorities," as he terms
them, of that sword which, according to the words he had flung
among the people in earlier years, had long been unsheathed.4 — To
Frederick his Elector he had written, on March 7, 1522, that the
Princes who were hostile to the Evangel did not see that they
were " forcing the people to rebel, and behaving as though they
wished themselves or their children to be exterminated ; this,
without a doubt, God will send as a punishment."6

How Luther was wont to criticise the authorities in his sermons,
regardless of the effect it might produce in such a period of
excitement, appears from a sermon preached on August 20, 1525,
i.e. at the time of the great peasant rising in Germany.

" Let anyone count up the Princes and rulers who fear God
more than man. How many do you think they will number ?
You could write all their names on one finger, or as someone has
said, on a signet ring."6 "At the Courts nowadays infidelity,
egotism and avarice prevail among the Princes and their council
lors . . . they say : my will be done and forget that there is a
God in heaven above."7 "These braggarts and great lords
think they are always in the right, and want others to give judg-

" Werke," Erl. ed., 22, p. 92.
Ibid., p. 97. 3 Ibid., p. 90.

" Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 293 ; Erl. ed., 242, p. 273.
" Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. Ill (" Briefwechsel," 3, p. 298).
" Werke," Weim. ed., 16, p. 359.
Ibid., p. 361.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 307

ment and pass sentence as pleases them. If this is not done, woe
betide the judge."1

In the same sermon, it is true, Luther quotes, happily and at
the same time forcibly, passages from Holy Scripture in praise of
good rulers. In his popular style he points out what should be
the qualities of a righteous sovereign who is solicitous for his
people's welfare. Such a ruler, he says, is courageous and
determined in dealing with evil of every sort, and says to him
self : " Even though this rich, powerful, strong man, be he Jack
or peer, becomes my enemy, I don't care. By virtue of my
office and calling I have one on my side who is far stronger, more
respected and more powerful than he, and though he [the enemy]
should have all the devils, Princes and Kings on his side, all
worse than himself, what is all that to me if He Who sits up there
in Heaven is with me ? All undertakings should be decided in
this way, and one should say : Dear Lord, I leave it in Thy
hands, though it should cost me my life. Then God answers :
Be steadfast and I will also stand by you." Luther nevertheless
concludes : " But where will you find such rulers ? Where are
they ? "2 In his sermon of December 3, likewise, he had drawn
a beautiful picture of the modesty and renunciation which the
example of Christ teaches both Princes and people. Yet there
again, at the conclusion, we find him saying : " There is no
kingdom that is not addicted to plunder. The Princes are a
gang of cut-purses."3

In the writing " On the secular power," to which we must
here revert, Luther says, that the Princes are, as a rule,
" the biggest fools or the worst knaves on the surface of the
earth " ; a good Prince " had always been a rare bird from
the beginning of the world." Because the world is " of the
devil," therefore " its Princes too are of a like nature." In
spite of this Luther ends by saying, that as God's " hang
men," the Princes ought to be obeyed.4 Later on he was to
declare that the passages from the Bible, which he had
here quoted in support of this obedience, were his best
defence against the charge of diminishing the respect due to
Princes, or of teaching rebellion. " The fact that, in that
work, I based and confirmed the temporal supremacy and
obedience on Scripture is of itself sufficient refutation of
such slanders."5

When he asserts in the above writing, that " Among

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 16, p. 357.

2 Ibid., p. 358. 3 Ibid.t 17, 1, p. 478.
« " Werke," Erl. ed., 22, pp. 89, 90.

5 " Widder den Radschlag der Meintzischen Pfaft'erey " (1526),
" Werke," Weim. ed., 19, p. 278.

308 THE APOSTASY

Christians no authority can or ought to exist, but that
everyone should be subject to all,"1 his intention was not,
as has sometimes been erroneously supposed by his
opponents, to incite the people against the secular power ;
the words, though badly chosen, must be understood in
connection with his mystical theory of the true believers,
i.e. of the invisible Church, being intended to convey, that
no authority should rule by enforced commands, but that,
on the contrary, all must ' serve,' and that even superiors
should be mindful of their duty of ' service.' It is not,
however, very surprising that such a statement, so un
wisely expressed in general terms as that, " among
Christians there neither can nor ought to be any authority,"
when taken out of its context and published abroad among
the people, was misapplied by the malcontents, more
especially when taken in conjunction with other question
able utterances of Luther's.

His experience with the fanatics, and, still more, the
events of the Peasant- War, caused Luther to dwell more and
more strongly on the duty and right of the authorities to
exercise compulsion towards evil-doers.2

In the work " Against the Heavenly Prophets," the first
published in the stormy year 1525, he says : " The principal
thing " required to protect the people against the devils
who were teaching through the mouths of the Anabaptist
prophets was, " in the case of the common people," com
pulsion by the sword and by law. The authorities must
force them to be at least " outwardly pious " (true Christians,
of course, do all of themselves) ; the law with its penalties
rules over them in the same way that " wild beasts are held
in check by chains and bars, in order that outward peace
may prevail among the people ; for this purpose the
temporal authorities are ordained, and it is God's will that
they be honoured and feared."3 The change in his views
concerning the treatment of sectarians and heretics will,
however, be considered elsewhere.4

On the other hand, it must be pointed out here that he
at least allows the supreme secular power such authority as

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 22, p. 93.

2 With regard to the peasants, compare the passages quoted
above, p. 217. 3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 29, p. 140.

* Cp. particularly vol. vi., xxxviii.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 309

to deprecate any armed resistance to it, even where the
Evangel is oppressed. In his work " On the secular power "
we find him stating : "I say briefly that no Prince may
make war on his over-Lord, such as the King, or the Emperor,
or any other feudal superior, but must allow him to seize
what he pleases. For the higher authorities must not be
resisted by force, but merely by bringing them to a know
ledge of the truth. If they are converted, it is well ; if not,
you are free from blame, and suffer injustice for God's
sake."1 — As early as 1520 we find him saying : " Even
though the authorities act unjustly God wills that they
should be obeyed without deceit, unless, indeed, they insist
publicly on the doing of what is wrong towards God or men ;
for to suffer unjustly harms 110 man's soul, indeed is profit
able to it."2 At the outset he persisted in dissuading
Princes favourable to his cause from armed resistance to the
Emperor.

His earlier unwillingness, however, only contrasts the
more strangely with his later attitude, particularly after the
Diet of Augsburg, when his position had become stronger
and when danger appeared to threaten the new Evangel
from the Imperial power, even though all the Emperor's
steps were merely in accordance with the ancient laws of the
Empire. Addressing the protesting Princes, he tells them
they must act as so many Constantines in defence of their
cause, and not wince at bloodshed in order to protect the
Evangel against the furious, soul-destroying attacks of the
new Licinii. His change of front in thus inciting to rebellion
he covered, by declaring he was most ready to render to
Caesar the things that were Caesar's, but that when the
Emperor forbade " what God in His Word [according to
Luther's interpretation] had taught and commanded," then
he was going beyond his province ; in such a case it was well
to remember that " God still retained what was His," " and
that they, the tyrants, had lost everything and suffered
shipwreck."3 In this case the action taken by the temporal
power according to law must, he says, be forcibly frus
trated by the subject. New theories as to the rights of the

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 22, p. 100 f.

2 In the " Sermon on Good Works," to Duke Johann of Saxony,
" Werke," Weim. ed., 6, p. 259 ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 198.

3 In a sermon of 1532 in the " Hauspostille," " Werke," Erl. ed.,
32, p. 182.

310 THE APOSTASY

Emperor and the Princes did their part in justifying these
demands in his eyes. " Gradually," says Fr. von Bezold,
" his experience of the limitations of the Imperial power and
the liberty of the Princes of the Empire brought about a
change in him. Thus he became . . . the father of the
doctrine of the right of resistance."1

In 1522 he had written in quite a different strain to his
Elector. At that time the critical question of the latter's
attitude towards the Imperial authority and of the pro
tection to be afforded Luther against the Emperor was
under discussion. " In the sight of men it behoves Your
Electoral Highness to act as follows : As Elector to render
obedience to the power established and allow His Imperial
Majesty to dispose of life and property in the towns and
lands subject to Your Electoral Highness, as is right and in
accordance with the laws of the Empire ; nor to oppose or
resist, or seek to place any obstacle or hindrance in the way
of the aforesaid power should it wish to lay hands on me
or kill me. ... If Your Electoral Highness were a believer,
you would see in this the glory of God, but since you are not
yet a believer, you have seen nothing so far."2 This, com
pared to the summons to resistance, spoken of above, reads
like an invitation to submit with entire patience to those
who were persecuting the Evangel. It is true that the then
position of affairs to some extent explains the case. The
writer was well aware that the Elector might be relied upon
to protect him, he also knew that a little temporary self-
restraint in his demands would do his cause no harm, and
that a profession of entire readiness to sacrifice himself
would be most conducive to his interests.3

But from this time the opinion that, in the pressing
interests of the gospel, it was permissible to make use of
violence against the authorities and their worldly regula
tions, breaks out repeatedly, and, in spite of the reticence he
frequently displays and of his warnings against rebellion
and revolt, he is quite unable to conceal his inner feeling.
Many passages of an inflammatory character have already
been instanced above and might be cited here.4

1 " Kultur der Gegenwart," p. 85, see above, p. 295, n. 1.

2 To the Elector Frederick, March 5, 1522, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53,
p. 108 f. (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 296).

3 See above, pp. 1-4, 20 f., 24, 101. 4 Cp. p. 190, n. 3.

THE SECULAR AUTHORITY 311

The opposition smouldering in his breast to the conduct
of the authorities in the matter of religious practices differ
ing from their own, comes out very strongly at an early
period. Though he declared that he had no wish to inter
fere, yet, even in 1522, he requested Frederick the Elector
of Saxony, through the intermediary of Spalatin,1 to have
Masses prohibited as idolatrous, " an interference in religious
matters on the part of the authorities," as Fr. Paulsen
remarks, " which it is difficult to reconcile with the position
which Luther assigns to them in 1523 in his work ' On the
secular power.' "2 Paulsen also recalls the statement
(above, p. 300) that a sovereign may not even order his
subjects to surrender the book of the gospels, and that
whoever obeyed such an order was handing over Christ to
Herod. It is true, he concludes, that here the order
would have emanated from " Popish authorities."

When the Canons of Altenburg, in accordance with their
chartered rights, wished, in 1522, to resist the appointment of
a Lutheran preacher in that town, neither olden law nor the
orders of the authorities availed anything with Luther, as
we shall see below (p. 314 ff) ; " against this [the introduction
of the Evangel] no seals, briefs, custom or right are valid,"
he writes ; it was the duty of the Elector " as a Christian
ruler to encounter the wolves." Finally, we have the out
burst : " God Himself has abrogated all authority and
power where it is opposed to the Evangel, ' we must obey
God rather than men ' " (Acts v. 29). 3

Here we have a practical commentary on what he says
when speaking of the " Word " which must make its way
alone : " The Word of God is a sword, is destruction,
vexation, ruin, poison, and as Amos says, like a bear in the
path and a lioness in the wood."4

Even in his sermon on Good Works in 1520 he had made
a remarkable application of the above principle of the
abrogation of all authority in the case of those who ruled
in defiance of God : People must not, he declares in ac-

1 N. Paulus, " Protestantismus und Toleranz im 16. Jahrh.,"
1911, p. 4. Cp. p. 327.

2 "Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichtes," I2, 1896, p. 209.

3 To the Elector Frederick of Saxony, May 8, 1522, " Werke,
Erl. ed., 53, p. 134 (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 356).

« To Spalatin, 1520, soon after February 18 (" Brief wechsel, 2,
p. 328).

312 THE APOSTASY

cordance with Acts v* 29, allow themselves to be forced to
act contrary to God's law ; " If a Prince whose cause is
obviously unjust wishes to make war, he must not be followed
or assisted, because God has commanded us not to kill
our neighbour or to do him an injury."1 A Protestant
theologian and historian of Luther remarks on this :
" Luther does not, however, explain how far the responsi
bility, right and duty of the subject extends, and clearly
had not given this matter any careful consideration."2

A want of " consideration " may be averred by the
historian concerning all Luther's theoretical statements on
secular authority during the first period of his career. The
historian will find it impossible to discover in Luther's views
on this subject the thread which, according to many modern
Protestant theologians, runs through his new theories.
Wilhclm Hans, a Protestant theologian, was right when he
wrote in 1901 : " Luther's lack of system is nowhere more
apparent than in his views concerning the authorities and
their duty towards religion. The attempt to sum up in a
logical system the ideas which he expressed on this subject
under varying circumstances and at different times, and to
bring these ideas into harmony with his practice, will ever
prove a failure. It will never be possible to set aside the
contradictions in his theory, and between his theory and his
practice." 3

5. How the New Church System was Introduced
A complete account of the introduction of the new
ecclesiastical system will become possible only when
impartial research has made known to us more fully than
hitherto the proceedings in the different localities according
to the records still extant.

Some districts were thrown open to the new Evangel
without any difficulty because the inhabitants, or people of
influence, believed they would thus be bringing about a
reformation in the true sense of the word, i.e. be contributing
to the removal of ecclesiastical abuses deplored by them
selves and by all men of discernment.

1 " Werke," Erl. ed., 162, p. 206 ; Weim. ed., 6, p. 265.

2 J. Kostlin, " Luthers Theologie," I2, p. 274.

3 " Gutachten und Streitschriften xiber das ius reformandi des
Rates vor und wahrend der Einfiihrung der offiziellen Kirchenreform
in Augsburg, 1534-1537 " (Augsburg, 1901, p. 73 f.).

DOLLINGER ON LUTHER'S SUCCESS 313

In the opinion of many, to quote words written by Dollinger
when yet a Catholic, " there was on the one side a large body of
prelates, ecclesiastical dignitaries and beneficiaries who, too
well-provided with worldly goods, lived carelessly, troubling
themselves little about the distress and decay of the Church,
and even looking with complacent indolence at the stormy
attacks directed against her ; on the other side stood a simple
Augustinian monk, who neither possessed nor sought for what
those men either enjoyed in plenty or were striving to obtain,
but who, for that very reason, was able to wield weapons not at
their command ; to fight with spirit, irresistible eloquence and
theological knowledge, with invincible self-confidence, steadfast
courage, enthusiasm, yea, with the energy of a will called to
dominate the minds of men and gifted with untiring powers for
work. Germany was at that time still virgin soil ; journalism
was yet unknown ; little, and that of no great importance, had as
yet been written on subjects of public and general interest.
Higher questions which might otherwise have engrossed people's
minds were not then mooted, thus people were all the more open
to religious excitement, while at the same time the nation, as
yet unaccustomed to pompous declamation and exaggerated
rhetoric, was all the more ready to believe every word which fell
from the lips of a man who, as priest and professor of theology
at one of the Universities, had, at the peril of his life, raised the
most terrible charges against the Church, charges too which
on the whole met with comparatively little contradiction. His
accusations, his appeals to a consoling doctrine, hitherto malici
ously repressed and kept under a bushel, he proclaimed in the
most forcible of language, ever appealing to Christ and the
gospel, and ever using figures from the Apocalypse to rate the
Papacy and the state of the Church in general, figures which could
not fail to fire the imagination of his readers. Luther's popular
tracts, which discussed for the first time the ecclesiastical system
as a whole, with all its defects, were on the one hand couched in
biblical phraseology and full of quotations and ideas from Holy
Scripture, while at the same time they were the work of a dema
gogue, well aware of the object in view, and perfectly alive to the
weaknesses of the national character. His writings could equally
w^ell be discussed in the tap-rooms and market-places of the
cities or preached from the pulpits. Even more efficacious than
the methods employed in propagating it were the motives
embodied in the system itself ; the doctrines — brought before
the people in so many sermons, hymns and tracts — on justifica
tion without any preparation, by the mere imputation of the
sufferings and merits of Christ, were sweet, consoling and welcome.
. . . Then there was the new Christian freedom . . . the
abolition of the obligation to confess, to fast, etc. ' Oh, what a
grand doctrine that was,' Wicel wrote at a later date, ' not to
be obliged to confess any more, nor to pray, nor to fast, nor to
make offerings or give alms. . . . You ought surely to have been
able to catch twTo German lands, not one only, with such bait,

314 THE APOSTASY

and to have dragged them into your net. For if you give a man
his own way, it is easy to convert him.' "l

Altenburg, Lichtenberg, Schwarzburg, Eilenburg
When the first preacher of the Lutheran faith at Alten
burg in the Saxon Electorate, Gabriel Zwilling, a former
comrade of Carlstadt's, began to behave in too violent and
arrogant a manner, Luther, out of consideration for his
sovereign, admonished him to " lay aside all presumption "
and to " leave God to do everything." " You must not
press for innovations, but, as I besought you once before,
free consciences by means of the Word alone, and by
exhorting to pure faith and charity. ... I gave my word
to the Prince that you would do this, so don't act otherwise
and bring shame on me, upon yourself and the Evangel.
You see the people running after external things, sacraments
and ceremonies ; this you must oppose and make an end
of ; see that you lead them first to faith and charity in
order that by their fruits they may show themselves to be
a branch of our Vine."2

As, however, the gentle methods which Luther had
promised his Elector to employ did not appear to suffice,
recourse was had to force. The town-council, with the
support of the inhabitants of Wittenberg, boldly threw law
and custom overboard.

Prejudiced in favour of Luther, they had invited him to
visit Altenburg and to preach there, and he had agreed.
On that occasion Luther had recommended Gabriel Zwilling
to the magistracy as resident preacher, in spite of the Ana
baptist tendencies he had already shown. The Canons, who
were faithful to the Church and who for centuries had the
gift of the livings, opposed the appointment of Zwilling to
one of the parishes. Thereupon the town-council, in a com
plaint composed by Luther himself, declared that, as the
natural and duly appointed senate of the congregation, it
had the right to decide ; that the councillors were, by virtue
of their office, not merely responsible for the secular govern
ment, but also were bound by the duty of " fraternal
Christian charity " to interfere on behalf of the Evangel.

1 " Luther, erne Skizze," reprinted in Wetzer and Welte, " Kirchen-
lexikon," 82, col. 319 f.

2 On May 8, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 357.

REFORMATION AT ALTENBURG 315

The council, or rather Luther, also pointed out, that accord
ing to Matthew vii. every man has the right to drive away
ravening wolves, that the Canons with the Provost at their
head were indeed such, not having scrupled to appropriate
the revenues, whilst all the while teaching false doctrine ;
" Scripture does not give power to a ' Concilium,' but to
each individual Christian to judge of doctrine, to detect the
wolves and to avoid them. . . . Each one must believe for
himself and be able to distinguish between true and false
doctrine."1 Luther here at one and the same time, because
it happens to serve his purpose, advocates an extravagant
religious freedom, manifestly inconsistent with any religious
commonwealth, and yet denies the unfortunate Canons any
liberty whatsoever : " They must either hold their tongues
or teach the pure Evangel " — or else depart elsewhere.

Luther supported the manifesto in a letter addressed to
the Elector in which he declares, that, " God Himself has
abrogated all authority and power where it opposes the
gospel,"2 though he does not say who is to decide whether
anyone may quote the gospel in his own favour, and what
is to be done if the authorities themselves assume the right
of " deciding in matters of doctrine."

The Provost of the Canons, in the matter of the appoint
ment, represented the lawful authority. To the demand of
the councillors he replied by asking what they would say
were he to appoint a new burgomaster at Altenburg ; yet
they had as little right to introduce a preacher as he would
have to interfere in their affairs; further, it was not his
duty to stand by and sec his collegiate establishment
deprived of any of its chartered rights.3

The decision came at last before the Elector. He refused to
confirm the appointment of Zwilling in his office of preacher,
as his turbulent Anabaptist views did not inspire confidence.
In the summer of 1522, however, he bestowed the appoint
ment on Wenceslaus Link, one of Luther's friends, without
paying any attention to the Canons and obviously acting on
Luther's advice. Link, in February, 1523, resigned the
office of Vicar-General of the Augustiniaii Congregation, and
soon after was married by Luther himself at Altenburg.

1 On April 28, 1522, ibid., p. 347.

2 Above, p 311. Cp. " Brief wcchsel," 3, p. 349.

3 Enders in " Luthers Brief wechsel," 3, p. 334, n. 2.

316 THE APOSTASY

The Canons protested in vain against the compulsion
exercised.

In the spring, 1524, Link succeeded in inducing the
council of Altenburg to prohibit the Franciscans from
celebrating Mass in. public, preaching and hearing con
fessions. The council vindicated its action in a document —
probably composed by Link — addressed to the Elector, in
which from the Old and New Testament it is shown that
rulers must not tolerate " idolatry."1 When Spalatin, after
resigning his post as Court Chaplain, became parish priest
of Altenburg, he at once set about suppressing the Catholic
worship even in the Collegiate Church of the town. A
demand for the suppression of the " idolatrous worship "
at Altenburg, which Luther had addressed to the Elector on
July 20, 1525,2 was followed by another composed by
Spalatin in October of the same year.3 Both were full of
attacks on the un-Christian, blasphemous mischief to which
an end ought to be put. On January 10, 1526, a fresh docu
ment of a similar nature, written by Spalatin and two
Altenburg preachers, was forwarded to the Elector. There
we read that the sovereign, if he wishes to escape the severe
chastisements of God, must follow the example of the pious
Jewish kings, who rooted out the abomination of idolatry.
Owing to the continuance of the service in the Collegiate
Church at Altenburg, the weak were exposed to spiritual
danger, and he must furthermore consider that " many a
poor man would readily come over to the Evangel if this
miserable business were made an end of." The utmost that
could be permitted was, that the Canons should perform
" their ceremonies in the most private fashion, with locked
doors, no one else being admitted."4

This petition was at once based by Luther on the general
theological principles referred to above, i.e. the statement he
had addressed to the Elector, declaring that, owing to the
value of the Evangel, no place must be allowed in the Elec
torate for the practice of any religion other than the " evan
gelical " : Let there be but one doctrine in every place !

1 For text, see " Mitteilungen der Geschichts- und Altertumsgesell-
schaft des Osterlandes," 6, 1886, p. 119 ff.

" Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 324 (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 221).

3 See Kolde, " Friedrich der Weise," 1881, p. 72.

4 For text, see " Mitteilungen . . . des Osterlandes," 0, p. 513 ff.

REFORMATION AT LICHTENBERG 317

Luther adds, that the Canons of Altenburg had indeed
alleged their conscience, but that this was not a true con
science but merely a fictitious one, otherwise they would
have agreed " to allow their conscience to be formed and
instructed from Scripture." This they had refused to do,
and had appealed instead to traditional usage " as vouched
for by the Church," " thereby giving ample proof that their
plea concerning their conscience was an invention and only
brought forward for the sake of preserving appearances ;
for a true conscience desires nothing so ardently as to be
instructed from Scripture." If they wished to continue
publicly to blaspheme the true God by their worship, they
must " prove from Scripture their right and authorisation
to do so."1 The Canons were convinced that there was no
need for them to prove to Luther their right from the Bible,
and also that the best proof would be of no avail. The
decision on the validity of any such proof lay in the last
instance with the Electoral Court, and he would indeed
have been blind who could have expected in that quarter
any judgment differing from Luther's.

Recourse was accordingly taken to force, and the Catholic
religion was obliged to retire from its last foothold. Neverthe-
less? a large number of the burghers of Altenburg remained
secretly faithful to the Church of their fathers. When, in
1528, the Lutheran visitors held an enquiry there, the town-
councillors, who themselves were on the side of Luther,
declared there were still " many Papists " in the town.2

Lichtenberg, in the Saxon Electorate, affords an example
of how Catholic ecclesiastics themselves promoted the falling
away of their flock by being the first to join the party of the
innovators, sometimes merely in order to be able to marry.
As soon as Luther had heard that Wolfgang Reissenbusch,
the clerical preceptor and administrator of the property be
longing to the Antonines, was showing signs of a desire for
matrimony, by means of the seductive letter of March 27, 1 525,
already quoted above,3 he invited him to carry out his project

1 On February 9, 1526, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 367 (" Brief -
wechsel," 5, p. 318).

2 C. A. Burkhardt, " Gesch. der sachs. Kirchenvisitationen, 1524—
1545," Leipzig, 1879, p. 44. 3 See above, p. 116 f.

318 THE APOSTASY

boldly. After his marriage, and notwithstanding the fact of
his broken vow, the monk not only retained his spiritual office,
but even continued to administer the temporalities of his
Order, in defiance of all justice. According to the custom now
introduced, the property was placed at the disposal of the
Elector. Ueissenbusch enjoyed the favour of the Court, and
in due course became one of the councillors of the Elector ;
his district was gradually won over to Lutheranism.

Count Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg, son of Count
Giinthcr one of Luther's enemies, wished to see the new
church system introduced in his domains, but met with the
resistance of the monks to whom his father, legally and in
due form, had entrusted the livings. He accordingly
approached Luther with the question whether he might
deprive them of the livings, rights and property.

Luther soon came to a decision, replied in the affirmative and
proceeded to explain to his questioner how he might quiet his
conscience.1 The Count's father had made the transfer on the
condition that the monks should : " Keep their observance and
above all preach the Gospel." Upon taking over the cure of souls
they had assumed the usual obligation of preaching the Catholic
faith. Now, he continues, it is only necessary that the Count
should summon them before him, and in the presence of witnesses
prove from their replies that they had not preached the Gospel
(i.e. not according to Luther) ; thereupon he would have the
" right and the power, indeed it would be his duty, to take the
livings away from them . . . for it is not unjust, but an urgent
duty, to drive away the wolf from the sheepfold. . . . No
preacher receives property and emoluments for doing harm, but
in order that he may make men pious. If, therefore, he does not
make them pious, the goods are no longer his. Such is my brief
answer." This was indeed the principle which he applied
throughout the Saxon Electorate. The result of its application
to the bishoprics of Germany and to the great ecclesiastical
domains in the Empire was to overthrow the very foundation of
the law of property. If the bishop, abbot or provost no longer
succeeds in making people pious, " then the property no longer
belongs to him."

Johann Heinrich of Schwarzburg at once seized upon the
property and rights which his father had made over by charter
to the Catholic Church. The monks were ousted, the livings
seized, the new teaching was introduced and the Count became
the founder of Lutheranism in Schwarzburg.

1 On December 12, 1522, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 154 (" Brief-
wechsel," 4, p. 36).

REFORMATION AT EILENBURG 319

In Eilenburg Luther proceeded through the agency at once
of his sovereign and the town-councillors, who were no less
zealous than the Prince himself in their efforts to extend their
sphere of influence. Luther himself had already worked
there in person for his cause. On the occasion of his second
stay at Eilenburg he found the councillors somewhat lacking
in zeal. Those who favoured the innovations were, however,
of opinion that if the Elector were to invite them to apply
for a preacher, they would do so. There is no doubt that the
Catholic consciences of the councillors were still troubled
with scruples, and that the demand of a number of the new
believers among the people had as yet failed to move
them.

Luther accordingly wrote from Eilenburg to the Court
Chaplain, Spalatin, asking him to employ his influence with
the Elector in the usual way. He was to obtain from the
latter a letter addressed to the town-councillors begging
them to " yield to the poor people in this so essential and
sacred a matter," and to summon one of the two preachers
whom he at once proposed. The reason he gives in these
words : "It is the duty of the sovereign, as ruler and
brother Christian, to drive away the wolves and to be
solicitous for the welfare of his people."1 The change of
religion was thereupon actually carried out, under the
Elector's pressure, in true bureaucratic fashion as a matter
appertaining to the magistracy. One of the two preachers
proposed, Andreas Kauxdorf of Torgau, arrived shortly after,
having been dutifully accepted by the councillors. He was
permitted to Lutheranise the people, however reluctant and
faithful to the Church they might be. He remained there
from 1522 to 1543, in which year he died.

General Phenomena accompanying the Religious Change
It not infrequently happened that the people were deceived
by faithless and apostate clerics who became preachers of
the new religion, and were drawn away from the olden faith
without being clearly aware of the fact. After having
become gradually and most insensibly accustomed to the
new faith and worship, not even the bravest had, as a rule,
the strength to draw back. The want of religious instruction

1 On May 5, 1522, " ex arce Eylenburgensi," " Brief wechsel," 3,
p. 351.

320 THE APOSTASY

among the people was here greatly to blame, likewise the
lack of organised ecclesiastical resistance to the error, and
also, the indolence of the episcopate.

Mass still continued to be said in many places where
Luthcranism had taken root, though in an altered form,
a fact which contributed to the deception. One of the
chief of Luther's aims was to combat the Mass as a
sacrifice.

He expressed this quite openly to Henry VIII in 1522 :
" If I succeed in doing away with the Mass, then I shall
believe I have completely conquered the Pope. On the Mass,
as on a rock, the whole of the Papacy is based, with its
monasteries, bishoprics, colleges, altars, services and
doctrines. ... If the sacrilegious and cursed custom of
Mass is overthrown, then the whole must fall. Through me
Christ has begun to reveal the abomination standing in the
Holy Place (Dan. ix. 27), and to destroy him [the Papal
Antichrist] who has taken up his seat there with the devil's
help, with false miracles and deceiving signs."1 In respect
of the deception of the Mass, " I oppose all the pronounce
ments of the Fathers, of men, of angels, of devils, not by an
appeal to ' ancient custom and tradition ' nor to any man,
but to the Word of the Eternal Majesty and to the Gospel
which even my adversaries are forced to acknowledge."
" This is God's Word," he vehemently exclaims of his denial
of the sacrifice, " not ours. Here I stand, here I take my
seat, here I stay, here I triumph and laugh to scorn all
Papists, Thomists, Henryists, sophists, and all the gates of
hell, not to speak of all the sayings of men, and the most
sacred and deceitful of customs."2

It was of the utmost importance to him that the Mass
should no longer be regarded as a sacrifice and as the centre
of worship. He wished to reduce it to a mere " sign and
Divine Testament in which God promises us His Grace and
assures us of it by a sign."3 Nor is the presence of Christ
in the sacrament, according to him, to be assumed as the
result of a change of substance ; Christ is in, with, and
beneath the bread. The churches were robbed of their
Divine Guest, for only in the actual ceremony of reception

1 " Contra Henricum regem Angliae," " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2,
p. 220 ; " Opp. Lat. var.," 6, p. 445.

2 Ibid., p. 215 = 437. 3 Ibid., p. 214 = 437.

MISLEADING CONCESSIONS 321

was the Supper a sacrament, at all other times it was
nothing.1

Yet, in spite of all this, as already pointed out, Luther
did not wish to abolish every form of liturgical celebration
at once. In the reconstruction of public worship everything
depended on not making the change felt by the people in a
way that was displeasing to them. The very fact of the
change was concealed from many by the form of liturgy
Luther advocated, 2 and by the retaining of the ceremonies,
vestments, lights, etc. Even the elevation was continued
for a long while. But, though the celebration was clothed
in a Catholic garb, yet of everything that expressed in
words the sacrificial character Luther had already said that
it " must and shall be done away with."3

•' The priest," says Luther thoughtfully, when giving
detailed instructions on the subject, " will easily be able to
arrange that the common people learn nothing of it, and
take no scandal."4 " How the priests are to behave with
regard to the Canon," he wrote in his Instruction for the
Visitors in the Saxon Electorate, " they know well from
other writings, and there is no need to preach much about
this to the laity." One would have thought, nevertheless,
that the " common people," no less than the learned, had a
perfect right to the truth and to being instructed.

Luther was also anxious that the innovation at communion
should be introduced in an unobtrusive manner. " Avoid
anything unusual or any attempt to oppose the masses."5

Although to receive under both kinds was regarded as the
only " evangelical " way, agreeable " to Christ's institution,"
yet the weak were to be permitted to receive under the form
of bread only and the reception of the chalice not to be

1 Kostlin, " Luthers Theologie," 22, p. 245. According to the
above new doctrine the Sacrament was not to be reserved in the taber
nacle. For further particulars it may suffice to refer to the Memoranda
which Luther, Jonas, Bugenhagen, and Melanchthon addressed to the
Council of the Margrave of Ansbach and to that of Nuremberg, August
1, 1532, "Werke," Erl. ed., 54, p. 319 (" Brief wechsel," 9, p. 312).
" Werke," Weim. ed., 19, p. 72 ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 228. A Mass in
German was, however, also introduced by him because, as he said,
many had requested it and " the secular authorities urged him to it."
See vol. v., xxix. 9.

3 " On the twofold species of the Sacrament," 1522, " Werke,"
Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 29 ; Erl. ed., 28, p. 304.

* Ibid., p. 29 = 305 ; cp. Erl. ed., 28, p. 215.

6 Ibid., p. 29 = 305.

322 THE APOSTASY

prescribed " until we make the Evangel better known
throughout the world."1 " But if anyone is so weak in this
matter as rather to omit receiving the Sacrament altogether
than to receive under one kind only, he was also to be
indulged and allowed to live according to his conscience."2
In justification of all this Luther declared that the practice
of the new religion must be introduced gently and " without
detriment to charity." That it was really a question of pre
venting disturbances and preserving charity, Cochlrcus and
others could not be made to see ; this writer, in his work on
Lutheranism, goes so far as to speak of Luther's " hypo
critical deception " of the masses.

Later, the advocate of this sagacious method of procedure
could declare : " Thank God, in indifferent matters our
churches are so arranged that a layman, whether Italian or
Spaniard, unable to understand our preaching, seeing our
Mass, choir, organs, bells, chantries, etc., would surely say
that it was a regular papist church, and that there was no
difference, or very little, between it and his own." He
rejoiced that, in spite of the hot-heads, no more had been
altered in the ritual than was absolutely necessary to con^
form it to his teaching.3

Such is the course to pursue, he says, " If our churches are
not to be shattered and confused and nothing to be effected
among the Papists."4 As a matter of fact, the system he
recommended did in some districts " effect much " among
Papists who would otherwise have refused to have anything
to do with him, the poor people not dreaming of the wide
gulf which separated the new worship from the old. The
people would not voluntarily have given up their faith in
the truly sacrificial character of the Eucharist, in transub-
stantiation and sacrifice generally ; as Melanchthon himself
admitted : " The world is so much attached to the Mass
that it seems well-nigh impossible to wrest people from it."5

We may here mention what occurred at a later date within

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 31 = 307.

2 Ibid., p. 31 = 306. To Gregor Briick, Chancellor to the Elector
of Saxony, beginning of April, 1541.

3 " Werke," Erl. ed., 55, p. 300. * Ibid.

5 " Corp. Reform.," 1, p. 842 ; cp. p. 845. In reply to Luther's
grievances against the celebration of Mass in earlier times, W. Kohler
remarks (" Katholizismus und Reformation," p. 46) that one might
form a better opinion of the Mass from A. Franz's book, " Die Messe
im Mittelalter " (1902), than from Luther's writings.

MISLEADING CONCESSIONS 323

the Lutheran fold. At the instigation of Wittenberg the
adaptation of the Catholic worship was carried out very
thoroughly in some places, the principle proving highly con
ducive to the acceptance of the new church system. In
few countries, however, was this the case to such an extent
as in Denmark, where Luther's friend Bugenhagen was
responsible for the change of religion. Even to-day, in the
Protestant worship established in Denmark, Norway and
the duchies formerly united to the Danish crown, there
is to be found a surprising number of Catholic remin
iscences, from the solemn Eucharistic service down to the
ringing of the bells thrice daily for prayer. In the celebration
of the solemn Eucharist the preachers even vest in a white
linen alb and chasuble of red velvet ; the elevation, too, is
still preserved, for, after the " consecration," which is pro
nounced from the middle of the altar according to im
memorial custom, the Bread and Wine are shown to the
people.

Martin Weier, a young student of good family from
Pomerania, took counsel of Luther as to how, on his return
from Wittenberg, he was to behave with regard to his old
father in the matter of Divine worship. Luther, according to
his own account, told him " to conform to his father's wishes
in every way in order not to offend him ; follow his example
concerning fasting, prayer, hearing Mass and the veneration
of the Saints, but at the same time instruct him in the Word
of God and on the subject of justification, so as, if possible,
to become his spiritual father without giving any offence."
Luther had declared concerning himself that he had offended
God most horribly by his former celebration of Mass, more
so than if he had been " a highwayman or kept a brothel " ;
yet he tells his aristocratic pupil that he will be committing
no sin, if, " for the sake of his father, he is present at Mass
and other acts by which God is dishonoured."1

A contrast to this system of accommodation and the
gentle introduction of innovations is presented by the acts
of violence which too often occurred on German soil at the
time of the religious revolution. The excesses perpetrated
by the people were, as can be proved, encouraged by the
inflammatory speeches of the preachers, Luther's own
words being frequently appealed to ; their effect in such
1 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 265, and ibid., n. 83.

324 THE APOSTASY

times of popular commotion was like that of oil poured on
the flames. In " the streets and at every corner," on all the
walls, on placards, in broadsides, and even on playing
cards the clergy and the monks were abused, to quote
Luther's own testimony.1 " Turks " and " worse than
Turks," such were the descriptions applied to them by the
populace in imitation of Luther. " We shall never be
successful against the Turks," he says later, reverting to his
earlier style of language, " unless we fall upon them and the
priests at the right moment and smite them dead."2

In the case of Luther himself such expressions were empty
words, but the mob scrupled little about carrying them into
effect. In many instances, however, lust for riches on the
part of the great, who longed to possess themselves of
Church property, and the long-standing antagonism of
towns and Princes to the rights claimed by bishops and
abbots, led to violence. The exaltation of their own power
was for many of the authorities their principal reason for
taking sides against the older Church. It must be borne in
mind that, subsequent to 1525, Luther himself was no
longer the sole head of the movement of apostasy. More
and more he began to hand over the actual guidance of the
movement to the secular power, a condition of things which
had been preparing since the Diet of Worms. The direction
of so far-reaching an undertaking was scarcely suited to his
talents, which were not of the administrative order. To his
followers, however, he remained the chief authority as
pastor, preacher and writer ; he continued to take an active
part in all public affairs, and, on many occasions, exercised
a direct and profound influence on the spread of the new
Church.

Many well-meaning and highly respected men supported
the new establishment from no selfish motives, and became
open and genuine promoters of Luther's cause, because
they looked upon it as just and true. The ideal character,
which Wittenberg was successful in stamping on Luther's
aims, proved very seductive, especially in the then prevailing

1 To Albert, Elector of Mayence, June 2, 1525, " Werke," Erl. ed.,
35, p. 309 (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 186).

2 Mathesius, " Tischreden," p. 80. In parallel passages in other
collections the words read " the priests at Zeitz and Meissen " ; obviously
the proper names are misprints for " Zeit " and " schmeissen."

HARTMUTH VON CRONBERG 325

ignorance of the real state of things, and in many places
won for the cause devoted and enthusiastic workers.

To take but one example : A knight, Hartmuth (Hart-
mann) von Cronberg, in the Taunus, glowing with zeal for
the new Evangel, wrote a letter recommending the Lutheran
congregational system to the inhabitants of Cronberg and
Frankfurt.

In 1522 he published a letter, addressed to Luther, in which he
expresses his readiness to work faithfully with him in order that
" all may awake from the sleep and prison of sin." I have heard,
with heartfelt sympathy, he says to Luther, of " your great pains
and crosses arising from the ardent charity you bear towards
God and your neighbour, for I am thoroughly aware, from sad
observation, of the misery and dreadful ruin of the whole German
nation." ' It is no wonder that a true Christian should tremble
in every limb with horror when he considers the desolation and
how awful the fall of Germany must be unless a Merciful God
enlightens us by His Grace so that we may come to the know
ledge of Him." " Fain would I speak to the German lands and
say : O Germany ! rejoice in the visitation of your heavenly
Father, accept with humble thanksgiving the heavenly light, the
Divine Truth and the Supreme Condescension, avail yourself of
the great clemency of God, Who of His Mercy is ready to forgive
you your great sin. . . . Throw off the heavy yoke of the devil
and accept the sweet yoke of Christ." The writer beseeches
God to grant " that we may not trust in ourselves or our works ;
rather do Thou justify us by a strong faith and confidence in
Thee alone, and Thy Divine promises, in order that Thy Divine,
Supreme Name, Grace and Clemency may be increased, praised
and magnified throughout the world."1

The same enthusiastic man of the sword had, even before this,
expressed himself in favour of Luther in other writings in
language almost fanatical. Luther, while at the Wartburg, had
received two pamphlets from him, one addressed to the Emperor
and the other to the Mendicant Orders. Luther had thanked him
in similar tones for his zeal, and encouraged him to stand fast in
spite of persecution.2 The above-quoted letter, addressed by
Cronberg to Luther, was his answer to Luther's from the Wart-
burg ; both were printed together and made the round of
Germany under the title " A missive to all those who suffer
persecution for the Word of God."

Luther there says to his admirer : " It is plain that your words
spring from the depths of your heart and soul," and this testi
mony seemed no exaggeration in the eyes of many who were also
working for the spread of Lutheranism with all their heart, and

1 On April 14, 1512, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 335.

2 About the middle of March, 1522, " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 119 ff.
(" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 308).

326 THE APOSTASY

in the best of faith. Cronberg and all these were animated by
the spirit which Luther by his writings had sought to instil into
all, and which he had once expressed in his own powerful, defiant
fashion : " And even should Satan attempt greater and worse
things he shall not weary us ; he may as well attempt to drag
Christ down from the right hand of God. Christ sits there
enthroned, and we too shall remain masters and lords over sin,
death, the devil and every thing."

The earnestness with which Cronberg espoused the
Lutheran ideas is shown by the fact of his resigning, after
the Diet of Worms, a yearly stipend of 200 gold gulden,
promised him by the Emperor, when he entered his service
with Sickingen in 1519.1 The assistance he lent to Sickin-
gen's treacherous machinations against the Empire proved
his undoing. His castle of Cronberg was seized on October
15, 1522. He sought to console himself for the loss of his
property by a passionate devotion to his religious and
political aims. After a life of " undismayed attachment to
what he deemed his duty," says H. Ulmann, this man,
" whose fidelity to conviction verged on puritanism," died
at Cronberg on August 7, 1549.2

This Lutheran had demanded of the Emperor that he
should convince the Pope by " irrefragable proofs " that
he was the viceroy of the devil, nay, himself Antichrist.
But should the Pope, owing to demoniacal possession, not
admit this, then the Emperor had full right and authority
and was bound before God to proceed against him by force,
as against an apostate, heretic and Antichrist."3 Some of
his admirers, and likewise a eulogist of modern times, have
extolled Hartmuth von Cronberg as a " Knight after
God's own heart." His fanaticism, however, went so far
that few dared to follow. The most unjust acts of violence,
not merely against the Papal Antichrist, but also against
church property which he declared everyone free to appro
priate, were exalted by him to principles. In a circular-
letter to Sickingen he wrote : " All ecclesiastical property

1 Luther to Melanchthon, May 12, 1521, " Briefwechsel," 3, p. 149 :
" Hartmannus Cronenbergius renuntiavit Ccesari stipendium WO
aureorum nummorum, nolens servire ei, qui impios istos (Luther's
princely foes) audiat . . . Deus vivit et regnal in scecula sceculorum.
Amen"

2 H. Ulmann, " Franz von Sickingen," Leipzig, 1872, p. 186.

3 Cp. Janssen-Pastor, ;' Gesch. des deutschen Volkes," 218, p. 251 f.

PROCEEDINGS AT WITTENBERG 327

has been declared free [i.e. ownerless] by God Himself, so
that whoever by the grace of God can get some of it may
keep it with God's help, and no creature whether Pope or
devil can harm such property." He warns the Frankfurt
priest, Peter Meyer, in a printed letter, that unless he is
converted to the " Evangel " any man may, with a good
conscience, take action against him, " just as it is lawful
to fall upon a ravening wolf, a sacrilegious thief and mur
derer, with word and deed."1

Wittenberg. The Saxon Electorate

The abolition of the last remnants of Catholic worship in
Wittenberg was characterised by violence and utter want
of consideration.

Only in the Collegiate Church, which was ruled by Provost
and Chapter, had it been possible to continue the celebration
of Mass. On April 26, 1522, at the instance of Luther, the
Elector Frederick determined that the solemn exposition
of the rich treasury of relics belonging to the Church should
be discontinued, in spite of the fact that the relics were in
great part his own gift to a Church which had enjoyed his
especial favour. Luther, however, was anxious completely
to transform this " Bcthaven," this place of idolatry, as
he called the Church,2 and in this matter the Prior and
some of the Canons were on his side.

After some unsuccessful negotiations, carried on with the
Elector through Spalatin, Luther himself invited the
Chapter, on March 1, 1523, to abolish all Catholic ceremonies,
as abominations, which could only give scandal at Wit
tenberg. " The cause of the ' Evangel,' which Christ has
committed to this city as a priceless gift," forced him, so he
declared, to speak. " My conscience can no longer keep
silence owing to the office entrusted to me." If they would
not give way peaceably, then they must be prepared for
" public insults " from him, seeing that they would have
to be excluded from the congregation as non-Christians, and
have their company shunned.3

1 The passages quoted, ibid., p. 252.

2 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 525.

3 " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 90. Cp. the contradiction between this
and his statement given above, p. 295 (cp. p. 328, n. 3), on the right
and duty of the authorities in regard to Divine worship.

328 THE APOSTASY

The Dean, who was faithful to the Church, and the
Catholic members of the Chapter persisted in their resistance,
urging that the Elector himself did not wish to see the
Masses discontinued which his ancestors had founded for the
repose of their souls.

Luther, not in the least disconcerted, on July 11, 1523,
repeated his written declaration, this time in a peremptory
tone. " If we endure this any longer," he writes, " it
will fall upon our own heads and wre shall be burdened with
the sins of others." The Canons were not to tell him that
" the Elector commanded or did not command to do this or
to alter that. I am speaking now to your own consciences.
What has the Elector to do with such matters ? " he asks,
strangely contradicting his own theory. " You know what
St. Peter says, Acts v. 29, ' We ought to obey God rather
than men,' and St. Paul (Gal. i. 8), 'Though an angel from
heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have
preached to you, let him be anathema.' ' He summons
them to " obey," otherwise he will pray against them as he
has hitherto prayed for them, and as Christ was " jealous " it
might be that his " prayer would be powerful and you may
have to suffer for it." " Christ soon punishes those who are
His, when they wax disobedient (cp. 1 Peter iv. 17). '51

His violence in the pulpit gave reason for anticipating the
worst when, on the very next day, he gave free rein to his
eloquence against the Collegiate Church.

On August 2, 1523, he again stirred up the excited mob against
the Canons and their service.2

He spoke to the multitude on that day of independent action
to be taken by all who were able, without the Elector and even
against him : " What does he matter to us ? " he cried. " He
commands only in worldly matters. But if he attempts to act
further, we [i.e. Luther and the people] shall say : " Your
Grace, pray look after your own business."3 It was an unequivo
cal invitation to make use of force when he told the people in
the same sermon, that they also would be " responsible for the
sins of others " if they permitted the Popish disorder any longer

1 "Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 178 (" Brief wechsel," 4, p. 17G).
" Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 649.

3 Very different are his words in the " Exhortation to abstain
from revolt" of the end of 1521 ("Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 680) :
" Pay heed to the authorities. So long as they do not take up the
matter and give orders, remain quiet. If they are against action, you
must be so also. For if you do anything, you are unjust and much
worse than the opposite party."

PROCEEDINGS AT WITTENBERG 329

in their midst. " I am afraid that this may also be the reason
why the Evangel effects so little amongst us, viz. that we suffer
such things to be."1 Yet he was careful prudently to admonish
the people not to touch the Canons' persons.

This admonition seems to have been more than counter
balanced by the remaining contents of the discourse. After the
sermon the Elector sent to remind Luther earnestly that, as a
rule, he had spoken against risings and that he trusted he would
" not go any further," as there was quite enough "discontent at
Wittenberg already."2 The offender in reply assured the
Elector by messenger, that he would give the people no occasion
for the employment of force, for discontent or tumult,3 and, for
the time being, he refrained from any further steps. Whether
he calmed the populace, or how he did this, we are not told.
We do know, however, that he addressed a fresh letter to the
Canons couched in such strong language as to draw down on
himself another reprimand from the Elector, who urged that
Luther did not act up to what he preached.4 In the letter in
question, dated November 17, 1524, he told the Canons quite
openly, that, unless they refrained voluntarily from " Masses,
vigils and everything contrary to the Holy Evangel," they
would be forced to do so ; he moreover asked f or a " true, straight
and immediate answer, yea or nay, before next Sunday " ;
what has happened is that " the devil has inspired you with a
spirit of defiance and mischief." The " great patience with
which we have hitherto supported your devilish behaviour and
the idolatry in your Churches " is exhausted. He also hints
that they could no longer be certain of the Elector's protection.5

Had he drawn the bow still tighter and incited to direct acts
of violence, the results would have fallen on his own head. Yet
a sermon which he delivered on November 27 against Mass at
the Collegiate Church had such an effect upon the people, that
the matter was decided. In it he asserted, that the Mass was
blasphemy, madness and a lie ; its celebration was worse than
unchastity, murder or robbery ; princes, burgomasters, council
lors and judges must protect the honour of God, since they had
received the sword from Him.6 He exhorts " all princes and
rulers, burgomasters, councillors and judges " to summon the
" blasphemous ministers " of the " whore of Babylon " and
force them to answer for themselves. His appeal is ostensibly for
the interference of the responsible authorities, not of the masses.

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 12, p. 649 f.

2 The Elector's Instructions to Hier. Schurf, Job. Scbwertfeger and
Melanchthon re Luther, August 7, 1523, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 203.

3 Hier. Schurf, etc., to the Elector, August 13, 1523, ibid., p. 207.

4 The Elector pointed out that " he himself preached that the
Word of God must be allowed to settle the question, and that this
would in its own good time have the desired effect, so God willed "
(November 24). See Enders, " Luthers Brief wechsel," 5, p. 55, n.

5 " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 269 (" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 54).

6 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 527, with the texts, p. 780.

330 THE APOSTASY

The agitation intentionally fomented became, however, so
great, that the Canons did not know what steps to take
against the " rising excitement of the inhabitants " of
Wittenberg,1 for the saving of the Catholic services, and
for the safety of their own persons. Even before this, students
had perpetrated disorders at night in the Collegiate Church,
and Luther had himself declared that he was obliged daily
to restrain the people to prevent the committing of excesses.
The Canons were now tormented by the singing of satires
on the Mass outside their house, and had to listen to the
curses which were showered on them. One night the Dean
had his windows smashed. The Town Council, and also the
University, now definitely took sides against the Chapter,
and, after warning them in writing of God's anger, sent
representatives to advise the Canons of their excommunica
tion. Although no actual tumult took place, yet the public
declarations and the threatening attitude of the populace
incited by Luther amounted to practical compulsion. The
few Canons still remaining finally yielded to force, particu
larly when they saw that the Elector, Frederick " the Wise,"
refused to give any but evasive replies to their appeals.

On Christmas Day, 1524, for the first time, there was no
Mass.

Protestants themselves have recently admitted that,
" contrary to the express wish of the sovereign and not
without the employment of force against the Canons"2 did
" Luther succeed in carrying matters so far."3 '' The
Canons finally gave way before new outbursts of violence
on the part of the students and the citizens," when, according
to Luther's own account, there remained only " three hogs
and paunches " of all the Canons formerly attached to this
Church, not of " All Saints," but rather of " All Devils."4

An echo of his tempestuous sermon of November 27 is to
be found in the pamphlet which Luther published at the
commencement of 1525 : " On the abomination of Silent
Masses " (against the Canon of the Mass). In the Preface he
refers directly to the inglorious proceedings against the
unfortunate Chapter. He finds it necessary to declare that

1 Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 527, with the texts, p. 780.

2 Th. Kolde, " Friedrich der Weise,"" p. 34.

3 C. A. Burkhardt, " Luthers Briefwechsel," 1866, p. 76.

4 Hausrath, " Luthers Leben," 1, p. 550.

REFORMATION IN SAXONY 331

he, for his part, had aroused no revolt, for what was done by
the established authorities could not be termed revolt ; the
" secular gentlemen," who, according to him, constituted
the established authorities, had, however, felt it their duty
to take steps against the Catholic worship in the Collegiate
Church.

In that same year, 1525, under the auspices of the new
Elector Johann, a great friend to Lutheranism, who suc
ceeded the Elector Frederick upon his death on May 5, 1525,
and whom Luther had long before won over to his cause,
the order of Divine Service at Wittenberg was entirely
altered. " The Pope " was at last, as Spalatin joyfully
proclaimed throughout the city, " completely set aside."1

Under the rule of the Elector Johann, Luther at once
carried out the complete suppression of Catholic worship
throughout the Electorate.

On October 1, 1525, Spalatin wrote to the Elector Johann :
*' Dr. Martin also says, that your Electoral Grace is on no
account to permit anyone to continue the anti-Christian
ceremonies any longer, or to start them again."2

With the object of helping him in his work at Court and of
removing any scruples he might have, Luther explained to
Spalatin, in a letter of November 11 of the same year, that
by stamping out the Catholic worship rulers would not be
forcing the faith on anyone, but merely prohibiting such
open abominations as the Mass ; if anyone, in spite of all,
desired to believe in it privately, or to blaspheme in secret,
no coercion would be exercised.3 No attention was paid
to the rights of Catholics to a Divine Worship, attendance
at which was to them a matter of conscience. They were
simply to be permitted to emigrate ; if they chose to remain
they were not to " perform or take any part in any public
worship."4 It was on such principles as these that the
Memorandum which Spalatin presented to the Elector on
January 10, 1526, was based.5

1 Cp. Spalatin to V. Warbeck, September 30, 1525, in Schlegel,
" Vita Spalatini," p. 222. 2 Kolde, ibid., p. 72.

3 " Brief wechsel," 5, p. 271 seq. * Kostlin-Kawerau, 1, p. 524.

5 Reprinted in the " Mitteil. der Gesch. und Alter tumsges. des
Osterl.," 6, 1886, p. 513. Cp. N. Paulus, " War Luther im Prinzip toler
ant ? " (•' Wissenschaftl. Beilage zur Germania," 1910, Nos. 12, 13,
p. 96).

332 THE APOSTASY

Luther himself appealed to the Elector on February 9,
1526, seeking to " fortify his conscience " and to encourage
him " to attack the idolaters with even greater readiness."
He points out to him, first, how damnable is the blasphemous,
idolatrous worship ; were he to afford it any protection,
then " all the abominations against God would eventu
ally weigh upon his, the Prince's, conscience " ; secondly,
that differences in religious worship would inevitably
give rise to " revolt and tumults"; hence the ruler
must provide that " in each locality there be but one
doctrine."1

To the force of such arguments Johann could not but
yield.

He answered in a friendly letter to Luther on February 13,
1526, that he had been pleased to take note of the difficulty,
and would for the future know how to comport himself in
these matters in a Christian and irreproachable manner.2
Subsequent to this assurance he acted as an apt pupil of the
Wittenberg Professor.

In accordance with the instructions given by the Elector
in 1527 for the general Visitation of the Churches in the
Saxon Electorate, an " inquisition " was to be held every
where by the ecclesiastical Visitors as to whether any " sect
or schism " existed in the country. Whoever was " suspected
of error in respect of the sacraments or some doctrine of
faith " was to be " summoned and interrogated, and, if the
occasion required, hostile witnesses were to be heard " ;
if any refused to give up their " error," they were com
manded to sell their possessions within a given time and to
quit the country.3 One thing only was still wanting, viz.
that the people should be compelled by the Ruler to attend
the Lutheran sermons and services. Even this was, however,
implied in the regulations, since those who did not attend
were classed among the " suspects." As time went on
Luther demanded the exercise of such coercion, and it was

1 Letters, cd. De Wette, 3, p. 88 seq., " Werke," Erl. ed., 53, p. 367
(" Briefwechsel," 5, p. 318). It is therefore incorrect to assert that
Luther was thinking only of the peace which would be a result of uniform
preaching, and not of the damnable nature of the worship to be pro
hibited. See the passages quoted here and above, p. 315 if.

2 " Briefwechsel," 5, p. 321.

3 E. Sehling, " Die evang. Kirchenordnungen des 16 Jahrh.,"
1, 1902, p. 142 ff.

REFORMATION IN SAXONY 333

actually introduced in the Electorate and, later, in the
Protestant Duchy of Saxony.1.

The proceedings on the introduction of the innovations in
other districts were similar to those in the Electorate of
Saxony. Wherever a small group of persons were willing
to throw in their lot with the first local representatives of the
new faith— generally clerics — they were backed up by the
State authorities, who reconstructed the religious system
as they thought best. " Nowhere was the primitive Lutheran
ideal realised of a congregation forming itself in entire
independence. . . . Thus at an early date Lutheranism took
its place among the political factors, and its development
was to a certain extent dependent upon the tendencies and
inclinations of the authorities and ruling sovereigns of
that day."2

The Electors Frederick and Johann of Saxony were
gradually joined by a number of other Princes who intro
duced the innovations into their lands, and the magistrates
of the larger, and even of some of the smaller, Imperial cities
soon followed suit. Thus the whole movement, having
owed its success so largely to the authorities, was governed
and exploited by them and assumed a strongly political
character, needless to say, much to the detriment of its
religious aspect.

What part the " inclinations of the ruling sovereigns "
played, even in opposition to Luther's own wishes, is plain
from the example of the Margrave Philip of Hesse, who,
next to the Elector of Saxony, was the most powerful, and
undoubtedly the most determined, promoter of the great
apostasy. This Prince, whose leanings were towards
Zurich, as early as 1529 was anxious to extend the alliance
he had concluded in the interests of the innovations with
the Saxon Electorate, so as to embrace also the Zwinglians.
Attracted by Zwingli's denial of the sacrament, he also
sought, with the assistance of theologians of his own way of
thinking, to amalgamate the Swiss doctrine with that of

1 Luther to Levin Metzsch, August 26, 1529, " Werke," Erl. ed.,
54, p. 97 (" Brief wechsel," 7, p. 149) ; to Thomas Loscher of same
date, " Brief wechsel," 7, p. 150 ; to the Margrave George of Branden
burg, September 14, 1531, "Werke," Erl. ed., 54, p. 253 (" Brief-
wechsel," 9, p. 103).

2 W. Friedensburg, " Schriften des Vereins fiir Reformationsgesch.,"
No. 100, 1910, p. 50.

334 THE APOSTASY

Wittenberg ; in this he was not, however, successful. The
great religious alliance with Wittenberg aimed at by
Zwingli himself as well as by Philip, and which it was hoped
to settle at the Conference of Marburg (see vol. iii., xix. 1),
was never realised, Luther refusing to give in on any point.
In Hesse, however, the Zwinglian influence was maintained
through the agency of theologians of Bucer's school, which
had the favour of the Court, while at Strasburg and other
South German cities the authorities, leaning even more to
the Swiss Confession, set up their " reformed " view as the
actual rule of faith in their domains.

Nuremberg

The history of the apostasy of Nuremberg, which may be
considered separately here, exhibits another type of the
proceedings at the general religious revolution.

Here the two centres of the inception of the movement were
the Augustinian monastery, inhabited by monks of Luther's own
Order, and, as in so many other places, the town-council.
Several clerics had already preached the new doctrines when the
magistrates, at the time of the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1522, from
motives of prudence, forbade the discussion of controversial
questions in the pulpit. In 1524 two Provosts, and likewise the
Prior of the Augustinians, abolished the celebration of Mass. The
most active in the cause of the change of religion was the former
priest and preacher, Andreas Osiander. At the Diet of Nurem
berg, in 1524, Catholic prelates were insulted by the excited mob.
Wives were taken by the Augustinian Johann Walter, by
Dominic Schleupner, preacher at St. Sebaldus, by the Abbot of
St. ^Egidius, by Provost Pessler and Osiander himself. Whereas
the town-council — the moving spirits of which were Hieronymus
Ebner, Caspar Stiitzel and particularly Lazarus Spengler, the
Town Clerk — formally decided to join Luther's party, many
among the people remained wavering, doubtful and undecided ;
here, as in so many other places, we find no trace of any sudden
falling away of the people as a whole.

What Charity Pirkheimer, the sister of the learned Nuremberg
patrician, wrote of her native city is applicable to many other
towns : "I frequently hear that there are many people in this
city who are almost in despair and no longer go to any sermons,
but say the preaching has led them astray so that they really do
not know what to believe, and that they are sorry they ever
listened to it."1

1 " Charitas Pirkheimers Denkwiirdigkeiten aus dem Reforma-
tionszeitalter," ed. C. Hofler, 1852, p. 130. Cp. Franz Binder, " Chari
tas Pirkheimer"2, 1878.

REFORMATION AT NUREMBERG 335

The magistrates of Nuremberg, by dint of violent measures,
sapped all Catholic life little by little and prevailed on the
chief families to embrace Lutheranism. The religious Orders
were prohibited from undertaking the cure of souls, the clergy
were ordained civilly, while, to those who proved amenable,
stipends were assured for life. The monastery of St. ^Egidius
surrendered to the magistrates in 1525 with its community
numbering twenty-five persons, likewise the Augustinian priory
from which no less than twenty-four religious passed over to
Lutheranism, likewise the Carmelite monastery with fifteen
priests and seven lay brothers, of whom only a few remained
staunch, and finally the Carthusian house, where most of the
monks became Lutherans.

All these changes took place in 1525.

The Dominicans held out longer. At last the five surviving
Friars surrendered their convent to the magistrates in 1543. The
Franciscan Observantines, however, made the finest stand,
enduring every kind of persecution and the most abject poverty
until the last died in 1562. Together with the sons of St. Francis
mention must also be made of the convent of Poor Clares, subject
to them, and presided over as Abbess by Charity Pirkheimer,
a lady equally clever and pious.

The Poor Clares, eighty in number, were, like the nuns of the
other convents in the town, deprived of their preachers and con
fessors and forced to listen to the evangelical pastors, which they
did grudgingly and with many a murmur. For five years they
were forcibly prevented from receiving the Blessed Sacrament.
The priests of the town could only bring them spiritual assistance
at the peril of their lives, and the consolations of the Church had
eventually to be conveyed to them from a distance, from Bam-
berg and Spalt, by priests in disguise. One after another the
inmates died in heroic fidelity to the Catholic religion ; those
who survived clung even more closely to the faith of their fathers
and to the strict observance of their Rule. It is touching to read
in the " Memoirs " of Charity Pirkheimer how the poor nuns
passed through the misery of bodily privations and spiritual
martyrdom in union with our suffering Saviour, in an inward
peace which nothing could destroy ; how they worked actively
for their friends, the poor of the city, and even celebrated now
and then little family festivals in joyful, sisterly love.

Wenceslaus Link, the former Superior of the Augustinian
house at Altenburg, had removed to Nuremberg with his wife,
where he became warden and preacher to the new hospital,
proving himself a fierce Lutheran. In 1541 he informed Luther
of the sad experiences he had had with the Evangel in the city.
The " Word " was despised, he writes, immorality was on the
increase and went unpunished, the preachers were hated and
he himself when he went out had the name " parson " derisively
hurled at him ; people dubbed the Evangel a human invention,
and snapped their fingers at the sentence of excommunication.
Luther expressed his sympathy with his downhearted correspon-

336 THE APOSTASY

dent and sought to encourage him : it grieved him deeply, he
wrote, that this fate should have befallen the Word of God ;
such a state of things was the third great temptation in the
history of the Church, the first being the persecutions in the
times of the Pagan rulers, and the second the difficulties occa
sioned by the great heresies in the period of the Fathers of the
Church, both of which had been safely withstood. He comforts
Link by assuring him that this, the third great temptation of the
Gospel, will also pass over happily. " Should this not be the
case, however, then there is no hope for Nuremberg, for that
would be to grieve the Holy Ghost, and it would be necessary to
think of quitting this Babylon. ' We would have cured Babylon,
but she is not healed [he says with Jeremias li. 9] ; let us forsake
her.' "l

It would, of course, be unfair to ascribe to Luther all the
deeds of violence or injustice which took place in great
number on the spread of the new ecclesiastical system. It
is notorious how much the unruly, turbulent spirit of that
day contributed to the distressing phenomena of the
struggle then being carried on. Such a far-reaching revolu
tion naturally set free forces and passions in both the
higher and lower spheres, which could only with difficulty be
brought once more under control. Now and then, too,
faithful Catholics, laymen, priests and religious, by a misuse
of the power they happened to possess, gave occasion to
renewed acts of oppression on the part of the Lutherans.

It is, nevertheless, right to point out the turbulent stamp
which Luther impressed upon the movement. His own share
in the work, some examples of which we have considered
above, were utterly at variance with his advice to Gabriel
Z willing, viz. " to leave everything to God, to avoid intro
ducing innovations and to guide the people solely by faith
and charity" (above, p. 314).

Luther and the Introduction of the New Teaching

at Erfurt

The most powerful impulse to the introduction of the
new teaching in Erfurt proceeded from the Augustinian
house in that town. Its former Prior, Johann Lang, became
an apostle of Lutheranism after having prepared the way
for the innovation as a Humanist of modern views closely
allied with the Humanist group at Erfurt.

1 On September 8, 1541, Letters, ed. De Wette, 5, p. 398 f. The
nature of the complaints made by Link are inferred from this letter.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 337

We find Lang, in the summer of 1520, still Rural Vicar of
his Order, and he may have retained the dignity for some
time longer when Wenceslaus Link was elected as Staupitz's
successor at the Chapter held at Eisleben in that year. The
fourteen monks of the Augustinian Congregation — at one
time so faithful to the Church — who quitted the Order
before Lang, remind us of the sad fact, that in his work
Luther met with support in many places from those who
were originally Catholics, and that the innovation was
often heartily welcomed by members of the clergy, secular
and regular.

The Saxon Augustinian Congregation, which was strongly
represented at Erfurt, had been undermined by Luther's
spirit no less than by the struggle between the Conventuals
and the Observantines. At the convention of the Order,
held at Wittenberg on the Feast of the Three Kings in 1522,
it was decided that begging would henceforth be no longer
allowed,1 "because we follow Holy Scripture." At that
time many had already apostatised. It was further or
dained, that, by virtue of the evangelical freedom of the
servants of God, everyone was free to leave his monastery.
" Among those who are Christ's there is neither monk nor
layman. Whoever is not yet able to comprehend this free
dom may act as he thinks fit, but must not give scandal to
others by his conduct, in order that the Holy Evangel be not
blasphemed." On this the Protestant historian of the
Augustinian Congregation remarks : " This [i.e. the giving
of no scandal] was more easily commended than put into
effect." And, speaking of the time when the Erfurt Augus
tinian house was already almost empty (Usingen, Nathin
and a few others alone remaining faithful), he writes :
" Lang and his companions were in great danger of seeing
the triumph of the Evangel rather in the rooting out of
Popery than in the promoting of the new evangelical life.
. . . Usingen, exposed to the mockery and insults of his own
pupils, which he had certainly never deserved, at last
quitted in anger the spot where he had worked for many
years," " an honest man."2 He withdrew in 1525 to the
Augustinian monastery at Wiirzburg.

Factors favourable to the spread of Lutheranism in

1 Kolde, " Die deutsche Augustinerkongregation," p. 378 f.

2 Ibid.
II. — Z

338 THE APOSTASY

Erfurt were : The Humanism, antagonistic to the Church,
which was all-powerful at the University ; the restlessness
of the common people, who were dissatisfied with their
condition ; the jealousy existing between the secular and
regular clergy, the struggle which the town was carrying
on with its chief pastor, the Archbishop of Mayence, con
cerning rights and property ; last, but not least, the hatred
of the laity for the opulent and far too numerous clergy.
Here, therefore, we find the selfsame elements present which
elsewhere so ably seconded the preaching of the new
evangelists.

Erfurt affords an example of how pious foundations of
former ages had multiplied to an excessive and burdensome
extent, a condition of things which was no longer any real
advantage to the Church, and simply tended to arouse the
jealousy of the laity and working man.

There were more than three hundred vicariates (livings,
or benefices), twenty-one parish churches or churches of the
same standing, thirty chapels and six hospitals ; the number of
secular clergy was in proportion to the work entailed in
serving the above, and there was an even greater number of
monks and nuns. In every corner there were monastic estab
lishments. Benedictines, the Scottish Brotherhood, the
Canons Regular, Carthusians, Dominicans and Franciscans,
Servites and Augustinians, all were represented. In addition
to this were four or five convents of women. Erfurt perhaps
possessed more ecclesiastical foundations and institutions
than any other town in Germany, with the possible ex
ception of Cologne and Nuremberg.1 The rich possessions
of the convents and churches at Erfurt were made the
pretext for the religious innovations. The immunity they
enjoyed from the burdens borne by the citizens was to be
made an end of, the ecclesiastical property was to be handed
over to the town, and the town itself was to be withdrawn
from the temporal sway of the Archbishop of Mayence.

When Luther, who was already under the ban, preached
at Erfurt, on April 7, 1521, in the Church of the Augus
tinians (see above, p. 63), he represented the religious
change, the way for which had already been paved,

1 Cp. Kolde, " Das religiose Leben in Erfurt beim Ausgang des
Mittelalters," 1898, p. 3, and the work of the Erfurt expert, Georg
Oergel, " Vom jungen Luther," 1899, p. 42.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 339

in the light of that evangelical freedom which his view
of faith and works was to bring to the inhabitants of
Erfurt.1

" We must not build upon human laws or works, but have a
real faith in Him Who destroys all sin. . . . Thus we don't care
a straw for man-made laws." He derides the ecclesiastical laws,
enacted by shepherds who destroyed the sheep and treated them
" as butchers do on Easter Eve." " Are all human laws to be
ignored ? " "I answer and say, that, where true Christian
charity and faith prevails, everything that a man does is meritori
ous and each one may do as he pleases, provided always that he
accounts his works as nothing ; for they cannot save him."
" Christ's work, which is not ours," alone avails to save us. He
extols the " sola fides " in persuasive and popular language,
showing how it alone justifies and saves us.

It was on this occasion that, unguardedly, he allowed him
self to be carried away to say : " What matters it if we commit
a fresh sin ! so long as we do not despair but remember that
Thou, O God, still livest."2

The contrary " delusion," he says, had been invented and
encouraged by the preachers, whose proceedings were infinitely
worse than any mere "numbering of the people." He storms
against the clergy and vigorously foments the social discontent.
To build churches, or found livings, etc., was mere outward
show ; " such works simply gave rise to avarice, desire for the
praise of men and other vices." " You think that as a priest you
are free from sin5 and yet you nourish so much jealousy in your
heart ; if you could slay your neighbour with impunity you
would do so and then go on saying Mass. Surely it would not be
surprising were a thunderbolt to smite you to the earth." In
order to complete the effect of this demagogic outburst he mocks
at the sermons, with their legends " about the old ass," etc.,
and their quotations from ancient philosophers, who were " not
only against the Gospel, but even against God Himself."

The result was stupendous, especially in the case of the
young men at the University whom the Humanists had
disposed in Luther's favour. On the day after Luther's
departure one of his sympathisers, a Canon of the Church
of St. Severus, who had taken part in the solemn reception
accorded Luther on his arrival in the town, was told by the
Dean, Jakob Doliatoris, that he was under excommunication
and might no longer attend the service in choir. On
his complaining to the University, of which he was a

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 7, p. 808 ff. ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 251.

2 Ibid., p. 810-254.

340 THE APOSTASY

member, the students intervened with demonstrations in
his favour.1

Luther heard of this only through certain unreliable
reports and wrote to Spalatin : " They apprehend still
worse things at Erfurt. The Senate pretends to see nothing
of what is going on. The clergy are reviled. The young
apprentices are said to be in league with the students. We
are about to see the prophecy fulfilled : ' Erfurt has
become a new [Husite] Prague.' ': Previous to this, in the
same letter, he had said of his adversaries in the Empire :
" Let them be, perhaps the day of their visitation is at
hand."2

Soon after, however, he became rather more concerned,
perhaps owing to further reports of the unrest, and began
to fear for the " good name and progress of the Evangel," in
consequence of the acts of brutality committed. " It is
indeed quite right," he wrote to Melanchthon, " that those
who persist in their impiety should have their courage
cooled," but in this " Satan makes a mockery of us " ; he
sees in a mystical vision " The Judgment Day," the ap
proaching end of the world at Erfurt, and the fig tree, as
had been foretold, growing up, covered with leaves, but
bare of fruit because the cause of the Evangel could not
make its way.3

In July, 1521, there broke out in the town the so-called
" Pfaffensturm."

In a few days more than sixty parsonages had been
pulled down, libraries destroyed and the archives and tithe
registers of the ecclesiastical authorities ransacked ; little
regard was shown for human life. A little later seven
clergy-houses were again set on fire. Meanwhile the
Lutheran preachers, with the fanatical Lang at their head,
were at liberty to stir up the people.4 The ruin of the
University was imminent ; many parents withdrew their
sons, fearing lest they should be infected with the " Husite
heresy." The customary Catholic services were, however,

1 Cp. G. Oergel, " Beitrage zur Gesch. des Erfurter Humanismus,"
in " Mitt, des Vereins fiir Gesch. und Altertumskunde von Erfurt,"
Hft. 15, Erfurt, 1892, p. 85 ff., who points out certain errors of Kamp-
schulte in his " Gesch. der Erfurter Universitat."

2 On May 14, 1521, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 153.

3 About the middle of May, 1521, ibid., p. 158.

* Janssen, " Hist, of the German People," 3, p. 246 ff.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 341

performed as usual, but the end of Catholic worship could
be foreseen owing to the ever-increasing growth of " evan
gelical freedom." Renegade monks, especially Luther's
former Augustinian comrades, preached against " the old
Church as the mother of faithlessness and hypocrisy " ;
Lang spoke of the monasteries as " dens of robbers." Under
the attacks of the preachers one human ordinance after
another fell to the ground. Fasting, long prayers, founded
Masses, confraternities, everything in fact, disappeared
before the new liberty, value being allowed only to temporal
works of mercy. The avarice of the "shorn, anointed
priestlings " was no longer to be stimulated by the people's
money. " Ruffianly crowds showed their sympathy with the
preachers by yelling and shouting in church. Theological
questions were debated in market-places and taverns,
men, women and boys expounded the Bible."1

Luther, through Lang, urged the Augustinians at Erfurt,
who still remained true to their monastic Rule, to apostatise ;
he merely expressed the wish that there should be no
"tumults" against the Order. Lang was to " defend the
cause of the Evangel "2 at the next Convention of the
Saxon Augustinians, a meeting which took place at
Epiphany, 1522 (above, p. 337). Lang justified his apostasy
in a work in which he expressly appeals to the new doctrines
on faith and good works. The exodus of the monks from
their convent was not, however, carried out as quietly as
Luther would have wished ; he dreaded the " slanders of
the foes of the Evangel " and was depressed by the im
morality of the inhabitants of Erfurt, and by his own experi
ence with his followers. He spoke his mind to Lang : " The
power of the Word is still concealed, or else you pay too
little heed to it. This surprises me greatly. We are just
the same as before, hard, unfeeling, impatient, sinful, in
temperate, lascivious and combative, in short, the mark of
the Christian, true charity, is nowhere to be found. Paul's
words are fulfilled in us : We have God's Word on our lips,
but not in power (cp. 1 Cor. iv. 20). "3 In 1524 Lang married
the rich widow of an Erfurt fuller.

Those who had been unfaithful to their vows and priestly

1 Jansseii, "Hist, of German People," 3, p. 248.

2 To Lang, December 18, 1521 (" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 256).

3 On March 28, 1522, ibid., p. 323.

342 THE APOSTASY

obligations, and then acted as preachers of the new faith,
gave the greatest scandal by their conduct.

Many letters dating from 1522, 1523 and 1524, written by
Lutheran Humanists such as Eobanus Hessus, Euricius
Cordus and Michael Nossenus, who, with disgust, were
observing their behaviour, bore witness to the general
deterioration of morals in the town, more particularly
among the escaped monks and nuns.1 " I see," Luther
himself wrote to Erfurt, " that monks are leaving in
great numbers for no other reason than for their belly's
sake and for the freedom of the flesh."2

Meanwhile, discussions were held in the Erfurt circle of
the semi-theologian Lang, on the absence of free-will in
man and on " the evil that God does." Lang applied to
Luther for help. " I see that you are idlers," was his reply,
" though the devil provides you with abundance of occupa
tion in what he plots amongst you. You must not argue
concerning the evil that God does. It is not, as you fancy,
the work of God, but a ceasing to work on God's part. We
desire what is evil when He ceases to work in us and leaves
our nature free to fulfil its o\vn wickedness. Where He
works the result is ever good. Scripture speaks of such
ceasing to work on God's part as a ' hardening.' Thus evil
cannot be wrought [by God], since it is nothing (' malum non
potent fieri, cum sit nihir), but it arises because what is good
is neglected, or prevented."

This was one of the ethical doctrines proclaimed by Luther
and Melanchthon which lay at the back of the new theory
of good works. Luther enlarged on it in startling fashion in
.his book " De servo arbitrio " (above, p. 223 ff.).

Bartholomew Usingen, the learned and pious Augus-
tinian, who had once been Luther's professor and had
enjoyed his especial esteem, witnessed with pain and sad
ness the changes in the town and in his own priory. The
former University professor, now an aged man, fearlessly
took his place in the yet remaining Catholic pulpits, par-

1 Cp. above, p. 123 ff., and Janssen- Pastor, " Gesch. des d. Volkes,"
218, p. 565, where reference is made to the letters of Eobanus Hessus :
" He speaks of the increase of crime and the executions which took
place almost daily ; for instance, that of a father who had dishonoured
his own daughter ; the prisons did not suffice for the number of
criminals." Nossenus remained with Lang.

2 In letter last referred to, p. 323 f.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 343

ticularly at St. Mary's, assured of the support and respect
of the staunch members of the fold who flocked in numbers
to hear him. There he protested against the new doctrines
and the growing licentiousness, though he too had to
submit to unheard-of insults, abuse and even violent inter
ruptions of his sermons when emissaries of the Lutherans
succeeded in forcing their way in. He also laboured against
religious innovations with his pen.

" If we are taught," says Usingen, " that faith alone can save
us, that good works are of no avail for salvation and do not merit
a reward for us in heaven, who will then take the trouble to
perform them ?— Why exhort men even to do what is right if we
have no free-will ? And who will be diligent in keeping the com
mandments of God if the people are taught that they cannot
possibly be kept, and that Christ has already fulfilled them
perfectly for us ? "*

Usingen points out to the preachers, especially to Johann
Gulsamer, the noisiest of them all: "The fruits of your preach
ing, the excesses and scandals which spring from it, are known
to the whole world ; then indeed shall the people exert them
selves to tame their passions when they are told repeatedly that
by faith alone all sin is blotted out, and that confession is
no longer necessary. Adultery, unchastity, theft, blasphemy,
calumny and such other vices increase to an alarming extent, as
unfortunately we see with our own eyes (' patet per quotidianum
exercitium ')."2

" The effect of your godless preaching is," he says, on another
occasion, " that the faithful no longer perform any works of
mercy, and for this reason the poor are heard to complain
bitterly of you."3 " The rich no longer trouble about the needy,
since they are told in sermons that faith alone suffices for salva
tion and that good works are not meritorious. The clergy, who
formerly distributed such abundant alms from the convents and
foundations, are no longer in a position to continue these works
of charity because, owing to your attacks, their means have been
so greatly reduced."4

The worthy Augustinian had shown especial marks of favour
to his pupil Lang, and it grieved him all the more deeply that he,
by the boundless animosity he exhibited in his discourses, should
have set an example to the other preachers in the matter of
abuse, whether of the Orders, the clergy or the Papacy. He said
to him in 1524, " I recalled you from exile [i.e. transferred you
from Wittenberg to the studium generate at Erfurt] . . . and
this is the distinction you have won for yourself ; you were the
cause of the Erfurt monks leaving their monastery ; there had

1 N. Paulus, " Bartholomavis vori Usingen," p. 92, n. 2-4.

2 Ibid., pp. 90, 91, n. 1. . 3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., p. 90, n. 2.

844 THE APOSTASY

been fourteen apostasies and now yours makes the fifteenth ;
like the dragon of the Apocalypse when he fell from heaven, you
dragged down with you the third part of the stars."1

Usingen mentions the " report," possibly exaggerated,
that at one time some three hundred apostate monks were
in residence at Erfurt ; many ex-nuns were daily to be seen
wandering about the streets.2 Most of these auxiliaries
who had flocked to the town in search of bread, were un
educated clerics who drew upon themselves the scorn of the
Humanists belonging to the new faith. Any of these clerics
who were capable of speaking in public, by preference
devoted themselves to invective. Usingen frequently
reproached his foes with their scurrility in the pulpit, their
constant attacks on the sins and crimes of the clergy, and
their violent reprobation and abuse of institutions and
customs held in universal veneration for ages, all of which
could only exercise a pernicious influence on morality.
" Holy Scripture," he says in a work against the two
preachers Culsamer and Mechler, " commands the preacher
to point out their sins to the people and to exhort them to
amendment. But the new preaching does not speak to the
people of their faults but only of the sins of the clergy, and
thus the listener forgets his own sins and leaves the church
worse than he entered it." And elsewhere : " Invective
was formerly confined to the viragoes of the market-place,
but now it flourishes in the churches." " Even your own
hearers are weary of your everlasting slanders. Formerly,
they say, the gospel was preached to us, but such abuse and
calumny was not then heard in the pulpit."3

It could not be but regarded as strange that Luther him
self, forgetful of his former regard, went so far as to egg on
his pupils and friends at Erfurt against his old professor.
Usingen certainly had never anticipated such treatment at
his hands. " He has, as you know," Luther wrote to Lang,
on June 26, " become hard-headed and full of ingrained
obstinacy and conceit. Therefore, in your preaching, you
must draw down upon his folly the contempt that such
coarse and inflated blindness deserves." As from his
early years he had never been known to yield to anyone,

1 " Bartholomaus von Usingen," p. 16, 54 f. Cp. Oergel, " Vom
jungen Luther," p. 132.

2 Paulus, ibid., p. 100, n. 1. 3 Ibid., p. 93 f.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 345

Luther gave up the hope of seeing the stubborn sophist
" yield to Christ " ; he sees here the confirmation of the
proverb : " No fool like an old fool."1

Carried away by his success at Erfurt, Luther urged the
preachers not to allow their energies to flag.

It is true that in an official Circular-Letter to the Erfurt
Congregation, despatched on July 10, 1522, and intended
for publication, his tone is comparatively calm ; the super
scription is : " Martin Luther, Ecclesiastes of Wittenberg,
to all the Christians at Erfurt together with the preachers
and ministers, Grace and Peace in Christ Jesus, Our Lord."2
Therein, at Lang's request, dealing with the controversy
which had arisen at Erfurt regarding the veneration
of the Saints, he declares that whilst there was cer
tainly no warrant of Scripture for Saint-worship, it ought
not to be assailed with violence (i.e. not after the fashion of
the fanatics whose doings were a public danger). He trusts
" we shall be the occasion of no rising " and points to his
own example as showing with what moderation he had
ever proceeded against the Papists : "As yet I have not
moved a finger against them, and Christ has destroyed them
with the sword of His mouth" (2 Thess. ii. S).3 "Leave
Christ to act " in true faith — such is the gist of his exhorta
tion in this letter so admirably padded with Pauline phrases
—but despise and avoid the " stiff-necked sophists " ;
" Whoever stinks, let him go on stinking." He concludes,
quite in the Pauline manner : " May Our Lord Jesus Christ
strengthen you together with us in all the fulness of the
knowledge of Himself to the honour of His Father, Who is
also ours, to Whom be Glory for ever and ever, Amen.
Greet Johann Lang [and the other preachers] : George
Forchheim, Johann Culhamer, Antony Musam, Jigidius
Mechler and Peter Bamberger. Philip, Jonas and all our
people greet you. The Grace of God be with you all,
Amen."4

But when Luther, at the instance of Duke Johann of
Saxony and his son Johann Frederick, came to Erfurt, in
October, 1522, accompanied by Melanchthon, Agricola and

1 " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 403.

2 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 164 ff. ; Erl. ed., 53, p. 139 ft.
(" Brief wechsel," 3, p. 431).

3 Ibid., p. 167 = 143. * Ibid., p. 168 = 144.

346 THE APOSTASY

Jacob Probst, and proceeded to address the multitude who
nocked to hear him (October 21 and 22), he was unable to
restrain his passion, and, by his words of fire, fanned the
hatred and blind fanaticism of the mob to the highest pitch.

He scolded the clergy as " fat and lazy priestlings and monks,"
who " hitherto had carried on their deceitful trade throughout
the whole world," and upon whom " everything had been
bestowed." " So far they have mightily fattened their great
paunches." "Of what use were their brotherhoods, indulgence-
letters and all their countless trickeries ? " " Ah, it must have
cost the devil much labour to establish the ecclesiastical Estate.
. . . Alas for these oil-pots who can do nothing but anoint
people, wash walls and baptise bells ! " But the believer is
" Lord over Pope and devil and all such powers, and is also a
judge of this delusion."

And yet in remarkable contrast to all this, in his closing words,
spoken with greater ponderance, he exhorts the people " not to
despise their enemies even though they know not Christ, but to
have patience with them." Yet before this he had declared :
" We must crush the fiendish head of this brood with the Evangel.
Then the Pope will lose his crown." He had also preached against
the secular authority exercised at Erfurt by the Archbishop of
Mayence : " Our Holy Fathers and reverend lords, who have
the spiritual sword as well as the temporal, want to be our rulers
and masters. It is plain they have not got even the spiritual
sword, and certainly God never gave them the temporal. There
fore it is only right, that, as they have exalted their government
so greatly, it should be greatly humbled."1

Amidst all this he has not a single word of actual blame for the
former acts of violence, but merely a few futile platitudes on
peaceableness, such as : " We do not wish to preserve the Evangel
by our own efforts," for it is sufficiently strong to see to itself.
He assures his hearers that, " he was not concerned how to
defend it."2 Yet he sets up each of his followers as " king " and
" yoke-fellow of Christ," having the Royal Priesthood so that
they may defy the Hierarchy, " who have stolen the sword out
of our hands." All this while expressly professing to proclaim
the great and popular doctrine of faith and Bible only.

" You have been baptised and endowed with the true faith,
therefore you are spiritual and able to judge of all things by the
word of the Evangel, and are not to be judged of any man. . . .
Say : My faith is founded on Christ alone and His Word, not on
the Pope or on any Councils. . . . My faith is here a judge and
may say : This doctrine is true, but that is false and evil. And
the Pope and all his crew, nay, all men on earth, must submit to
that decision. . . . Therefore I say : Whoever has faith is a
spiritual man and judge of all things, and is himself judged of no

1 " Werke," Weim. ed., 13, 3, p. 358-61, 362 fi. ; Erl. ed., 162,
pp. 445, 446, 447, 451, 454, 460, 461. 2 p. 354-439.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 347

man . . . the Pope owes him obedience, and, were he a true
Christian, would prostrate himself at his feet, and so too would
every University, learned man or sophist."1

All depends on one thing, namely, whether this believer
" judges according to the Evangel," i.e. according to the new
interpretation of Scripture which Luther has disclosed.

We naturally think of Usingen and those Erfurt professors
who remained faithful to the Church when Luther, in the course
of his sermon, in sarcastic language, pits his new interpreta
tion of Scripture against the " sophists, birettas and skull-caps."
" Bang the mouths of the sophists to [when they cry] : ' Papa
Papa, Concilium, Concilium, Patres, Patres, Universities, Uni
versities.' What on earth do we care about that ? one word
of God is more than all this."2 " Let them go on with all their
sermons and their dreams ! " " Let us see what such bats will
do with their feather-brooms ! "3

The commanding tone in which he spoke and the persuasive
force of his personality were apt to make. his hearers forgetful of
the fact, that, after all, his great pretensions rested on his own
testimony- alone. In the general excitement the objections,
which he himself had the courage to bring forward, seemed
futile : " Were not Christ and the Gospel preached before ? Do
you fancy," he replies, " that we are not aware of what is meant
by Gospel, Christ and Faith ? "4

It was of the utmost importance to him that, on this occasion
of his appearance at Erfurt, he should make the whole weight of
his personal authority felt so as to stem betimes the flood let loose
by others who taught differently ; he was determined to impress
the seal of his own spirit upon the new religious system at this
important outpost.

Even before this he had let fall some words in confidence to
Lang expressive of his concern that, at Erfurt, as it seemed to
him, they wished to outstrip him in the knowledge of the Word,
so that he felt himself decreasing while others increased (John
iii. 30), 6 and in the Circular-Letter above mentioned, he had
anxiously warned the Erfurt believers against those who,
confiding in their " peculiar wisdom," were desirous of teaching
"something besides Christ and beyond our preaching."6 Now,
personally present at the place where danger threatened, he
insists from the pulpit with great emphasis on his mission : "It
was not I who put myself forward. . . . Christ Our Master
when sending His apostles out into the world to preach gave
them no other directions than to preach the Gospel . . . when
He makes a man a preacher and apostle He also in His gracious
condescension gives him instructions how to speak and what
to speak, even down to the present day." Those who heard

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., 13, 3, p. 359-445 f.

2 Ibid., p. 359 f.=446. 3 Ibid., p. 354 = 440.

4 Ibid., p. 364 f. = 453.

5 On March 28, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 3, p. 323.

6 " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 2, p. 167 ; Erl. ed., 53, p. 143.

348 THE APOSTASY

him were therefore to believe for certain " that he was not
preaching what was his, but, like the apostles, the Word of God."1

Many of his hearers were all the more likely to overlook the
strange pretensions herein embodied, seeing that a large portion
of his discourse proclaimed the sweet doctrine of evangelical
freedom and denounced good works.

For the latter purpose he very effectively introduces the
Catholic preachers, putting into their mouths the assertion,
falsely credited to them, that " only works and man's justice "
availed anything, not " Christ and His Justice " ; for they say,
" faith is not sufficient, it is also necessary to fast, to pray, to build
churches, to found monasteries, monkeries and nunneries, and
so forth." But " they will be knocked on the head and recoil,
and be convicted of the fact, that they know nothing whatever
of what concerns Christ, the Gospel and good works." " We
cannot become pious and righteous by our own works, if we
could we should be striking Paul a blow on the mouth." These
" dream-preachers " speak in vain of " Works, fasting and
prayer," but you are a Christian if you believe that Christ is for
you wisdom and righteousness. " The doctrine of those who are
called Christians must not come from man, or proceed from
man's efforts. . . . Therefore a Christian life is not promoted
by our fasting, prayers, cowls or anything that we may under
take."2

He returns again and again to the belief, so deeply rooted in
the heart, of the efficacy of good works in order that he may up
root it completely. The whole Christian system demands, he
thinks, the condemnation of the importance attached hitherto
to good works. " Thus the whole of Christianity consists in your
holding fast to the Evangel, which Christ alone ordains and
teaches, not to human words or wrorks."3 It is a " devil " who
speaks to you of the meritorious power of works, " not indeed a
black or painted devil, but a white devil, who, under a beautiful
semblance of life, infuses into you the poison of eternal death."4
Of the Christian who relies only on faith, he says, " Christ's
innocence becomes his innocence, and in the same way Christ's
piety, holiness and salvation become his, and all that is in Christ
is contained in the believing heart together with Christ."5 " But
such faith is awakened in us by God. From it spring the works
by which we assist and serve our neighbour."6

He speaks at considerable length in the last part of his
sermons of the particular works which he considers allowable and
commendable. How much he wished to imply may, however,
be inferred from what has gone before.

Shall we not do good works ? Shall we not pray any more,
fast, found monasteries, become monks or nuns, or do similar
wrorks ? The answer is : " There are two kinds of good works,
some which are looked upon as good," i.e. " our own self-chosen

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., 13, 3, p. 361 = 162, p. 452.

2 Ibid., p. 365 f. -452-4. 3 Ibid., p. 370 = 461.

4 Ibid. & Ibid., p. 356-442. « Ibid., p. 357 = 443.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 349

works," such as " special fasting, special prayers, wearing a
special dress or joining an Order." " None of this is ordained by
God," and " Christian faith looks to nothing save Christ only,"
therefore these works we must leave severely alone. There are, on
the other hand, works which are better than these. " When once
we have laid hold upon Christ, then good Christian works follow,
such as God has commanded and which man performs not for
his own advantage but in the service of his neighbour." But
even of these works Luther is careful to add that they should be
performed " without placing any trust in them for justification."
" Fasting is a good work," but then, " the devil himself does not
eat too much," and sometimes even " a Jew " fasts ; " prayer
is also a good work," but it does not consist in " much mumbling
or shouting," and even " the Turk prays much with his lips."
" No one may or can bear the name of Christian except by the
work of Christ."1

Thus, even where he is forced to admit good works, he must
needs add a warning.

Finally, where he is exhorting to the patient bearing of crosses,
he immediately, and most strangely, restricts this exercise of
virtue to the limits of his own experience : One bears the cross
when he is unjustly proclaimed " a heretic and evil-doer," not
" when he is sick in bed " ; to bear the cross is to be " deprived
of interior consolation," and to be severely tried by " God's hand
and by His anger."2

In the new congregation at Erfurt it was a question of the very
foundations of the moral life. Yet in Luther's addresses we miss
the necessary exhortations to a change of heart, to struggle
against the passions and overcome sensuality. Neither is the
sinner exhorted to repentance, penance, contrition, fear of God
and a firm purpose of amendment, nor are the more zealous
encouraged to the active exercise of the love of God, to self-
denial according to the virtues of their state, or to sanctification
by the use of those means which Luther still continued to recog
nise, at least to a certain extent, such as the Eucharist. All his
exhortations merge into this one thing, trust in Christ. He
preached, indeed, one part of the sermon of the Precursor, viz.
" The Kingdom of God is at hand " ; with the other : " Bring
forth therefore fruit worthy of penance," he would have nothing
to do.

As far as the change at Erfurt went, the moral condition
of the town was to serve more than ever as a refutation of
Luther's expectation that " the works will follow."

On January 24, 1524, Eobanus Hessus wrote to Lang :
" Immorality, corruption of youth, contempt of learning
and dissensions, such are the fruits of your Evangel."3 " I

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., 13, 3, pp. 363, 366 f. = 455 f.

2 Ibid., p. 368 = 458. 3 Cp. Paulus, "Usingen," p. 94, n. 2.

350 THE APOSTASY

dislike being here very much," he says, in the same year, to
his friend Sturz, " since all is lost, for there is now no hope
of a revival of learning or of a recovery in public life. Every
thing is on the road to destruction, and we ourselves are
rendered odious to all classes by reason of some unlearned
deserters. " Oh, unhappy Erfurt," he cries, in view of the
" outrageous behaviour of these godless men of God " ; one
seeks to oppress the other ; already the battlefield of
passion is tinged with " blood."1

" You have by your preaching called forth a diabolical
life in the town," Usingen wrote in 1524 of the preachers at
Erfurt, " although this is now displeasing to you, and you
encourage it even up to the present day ; you set the people
free from the obedience which, according to the Divine
command, they owe to the authorities of the Church, you
deprive the people of the fear both of God and of man,
hence the corruption of morals, which increases from day
to day."2

Usingen, who continued courageously to vindicate the
faith of his fathers, was depicted by the preachers as a
" crazy old man," just as they had been advised to do by
Luther. "I am quite pleased to hear," Luther wrote to
Lang some considerable time after his return, " that this
' Unsingen ' is still carrying on his fooleries ; as the Apostle
Paul says, their folly must be made manifest (2 Tim. iii. 9).''3

The champion of the Church, the alleged fool, was suffi
ciently clear-sighted and frank to predict the Peasant-War
as the end of all the godless commotion, and to prophesy
that the result of the general religious subversion would be
the ruin of his German Fatherland. A fanatical preacher
in the town had appealed to the mattocks of the peasants.
Him the Augustinian asks : "If the Word of God suffices
in the Church, why have you in your sermons appealed for
help to the pickaxes, mattocks and spades of the peasants ? "
" Why do you tell the people that the peasant must come
'from the field with these weapons to assist the Evangel, if
your own and your comrades' words prove of no avail ?
Do you not know with what audacity the peasants are
already rising against their lords ? " " The new preaching,"

1 Cp. Paulus, "Usingen," p. 100, n. 2. 2 Ibid., p. 91, n. 4.

3 In the first half of November, 1522, " Brief wechsel," 4, p. 27 :
" Unsingen inaanire lubens audio," etc.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 351

he complains, even where it is not directly inflammatory,
" renders the people, who are already desirous of innova
tions and dearly love the freedom of the flesh, only too much
inclined for tumults, and this daily foments the spirit of
unrest."1 "Do you not know that the mob is a hydra-
headed monster, a monster that thirsts for blood ? Are you
anxious to promote your cause with the help of cut
throats ? "2 Owing to the iconoclasts, the ancient greatness
of Constantinople fell, and the Roman Empire of the East
faded away ; in like manner, so gloomily he predicts, the
religious struggle now being waged in Germany will bring
about the ruin of the Western Empire and the loss of its
ancient greatness.3

The help which the innovators received from the Erfurt
magistrates induced the leaders of the party to pin their
trust on the support of the secular authorities. Even this
was justified by appeals to Scripture.

Lang, on presenting to Hermann von Hoff, the president
of the Erfurt town-council, a translation which he had made
of the Gospel of St. Matthew, stated in the accompanying
letter, that he had done so " in order that all may know and
take heed to the fact, that whatever they undertake against
the Gospel is also directed against you. It is necessary,
unfortunately, to defend the Gospel by means of the
sword."4

In July, 1521, an agreement had, it is true, been entered into
which brought some guarantee of safety to the clergy, more
particularly the Canons of St. Mary's and St. Severus, yet in the
ensuing years the Chapters were forced to make endless protests
against the preachers' interference in their services and the
encroachments of the magistrates on their personal liberty, all
in direct contravention of the agreement.

The council demanded that the oath of obedience should be
taken to itself and not to the Archbishop of Mayence, as here
tofore. Priests were arrested on charges which did not concern
the council at all, and were taken to the Rathaus. The clergy
were obliged to pay taxes like other citizens on all farms and
property which belonged to them or to their churches — which
had been exempt from time immemorial — and likewise on any
treasure or cash they might possess. When the peasants threat
ened Erfurt, the clergy were advised to bring all the valuables
belonging to their churches to the Rathaus where the council, in

1 Paulus, ibid., p. 102, n. 2. 2 Ibid., p. 102, n. 4.

3 Ibid., p. 101, n. 2. * Paulus, ibid., p. 35.

352 THE APOSTASY

view of the danger of the times, would receive them into safe
custody, giving in return formal receipts. Since the council, as
guardians of several monasteries, including St. Peter's, had
already appointed laymen who hindered the lawful Superiors from
coming to any independent decision in matters of any moment, and
as all the chalices and other vessels of gold and silver, together with
the more valuable Church vestments, had already been seized
at the Servites, the Brothers of the Rule and the Carthusians,
the Canons saw how futile it would be to reject the " advice "
given, and they accordingly decided to deliver up the more
valuable objects belonging to the two principal churches, St.
Mary's and St. Severus, their decision being accepted by the
council with " hearty thanks." At the formal surrender of the
vessels the magistrates protested that the Canons were really
not fully aware how well disposed they, the magistrates, were
towards them ; that they had no wish to drive away the clergy,
" but rather to show them all charity so that they might return
thanks to God." Yet we learn also that : Many persons belonging
to the council whispered that it was their intention to make the
position of the clergy unbearable by means of this and other
like acts of despoliation.1

On April 27, 1525, on the occasion of the taking over of the
treasure, with the co-operation of persons " distinguished for their
strong Lutheran views," a strict search was made in both the
venerable churches for anything of any value that might have
been left. Not the least consideration was paid to the private
property of the individual clergy, objects were seized in the most
violent manner, locked chests and cupboards were simply forced
open, or, if this took too long, broken with axes. Every hasp of
silver on copes and elsewhere was torn off. " Unclean fists,"
says a contemporary narrator, " seized the chalices and sacred
vessels, which they had no right to touch, and carried them with
loud jeers in buckets and baskets to places where they were
dishonoured." As in other churches and convents, the books
and papers on which any claims of the clergy against the
council might be based were selected with special care. While
precious works of art were thus being consigned to destruction,2
members of the town-council were consoling the Canons by
renewed assurances, that the council " would protect both their
life and their property." Finally, the two churches were closely
watched for some while after, " lest something might still be
preserved in them, and to prevent such being taken possession
of by the clergy."3

When, in 1525, on the news of the Peasant Rising in

1 See Th. Eitner, " Erfurt und die Bauernaufstande im 16. Jahr-
hundert," Halle, 1903, p. 58 f. This writing, which is also printed in
the " Mitteilungen des Vereins fur Gesch. und Altertumskunde von
Erfurt," 24, 1903, p. 3-108, is founded on detailed studies of the archives
and local history, and has been made the basis of the following account .

2 Present work, vol. v., xxx. 6. 3 Eitner, ibid., p. 57-60.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 353

Swabia and Franconia, meetings were held by the peasants
in the Erfurt district, the adherents of the movement
determined to enforce by violence their demands even at
Erfurt. Those in the town who sympathised with Luther
made common cause with the rebels.1 The magistrates were
undecided. They were not as yet exclusively Lutheran, but
were anxious to make the town independent of the Arch
bishop of Mayence, and to secure for themselves the property
and rights of the clergy. For the most part the lower orders
were unfavourable to the magistrates, and therefore sided
with the peasantry.

The peasants from the numerous villages which were
politically regarded as belonging to the Erfurt district
demanded that they should be emancipated from the
burdens which they had to bear, and placed on a footing of
social equality with the lower class of Erfurt burghers.
With this they joined, as had been done elsewhere, religious
demands in the sense of Luther's innovations. The move
ment was publicly inaugurated by fourteen villages at a
meeting held in a beerhouse on April 25 or 26, 1525, at
which the peasants bound themselves by an oath taken
with " uplifted right hand," at the risk of their lives " to
support the Word of God and to combine to abolish the old
obsolete imposts." When warned not to go to Erfurt, one of
the leaders replied : " God has enlightened us, we shall not
remain, but go forward." As soon as they had come to an
agreement as to their demands concerning the taxes " and
other heavy burdens which the Evangel was to assist them
to get rid of," they collected in arms around the walls of
Erfurt.2 The magistrates then took counsel how to divert
the threatening storm and direct it against the clergy and
the hated authorities of Mayence. The remembrance of the
" Pfaffensturm " which, in 1521, had served as a means to
allay the social grievances, was an encouragement to adopt
a similar course. As intermediary between council and
peasants, Hermann von Hoff, who has been mentioned
above as an opponent of the Catholic clergy and the rights

1 Cp. also Janssen. Ibid., 4, p. 301 f. : " The Erfurt preachers had
for years long been among the most violent agitators in town and
country. ... On the news of the insurrection in Swabia and Franconia
several gatherings of peasants were held in the Erfurt district in the
spring, 1525," etc.

2 Eitner, p. 33 f., pp. 43, 48.

ii.— 2 A

354 THE APOSTASY

of Mayence, took a leading part ; one of his principles was
that " it is necessary to make use of every means, sweet as
well as bitter, if we are to allay so great a commotion and to
avert further mischief."1

In their perplexity the magistrates, through the agency
of Hoff, admitted the horde of peasants, only stipulating
that they should spare the property of the burghers, though
they were to be free to plunder the Palace of the Archbishop
of Mayence, the " hereditary lord " of the city, and also the
toll-house. The peasants made their entry on April 28
with that captain of the town whom Lang had invited to
draw the sword in the cause of the Evangel. Not only was
the Palace despoiled and the toll-house utterly destroyed,
but the salt warehouses and almost all the parsonages were
attacked and looted. In the name of " evangelical freedom "
the plunderers vented all their fury on the sacred vessels,
pictures and relics they were still able to find.

" In the Archbishop's Palace Lutheran preachers, for
instance, Eberlin of Gunzburg, Mechler and Lang, mixed
with the rabble of the town and country and preached to
them." The preachers made no secret of being " in league
with the peasantry and the proletariate of the town." The
clergy and religious were, hoAvever, to be made " to feel
still more severely "2 the effects of the alliance between the
three parties.

At the first coming of the peasants, that quarters might be
found for them, " all the convents of monks and nuns were
confiscated and their inhabitants driven out into the street."
" Alas, how wretched did the poor nuns look passing up and
down the alleys of the town,"3 says an eye-witness in an Erfurt
chronicle. All those connected with the Collegiate churches
of St. Mary and St. Severus had peasants billeted on them in
numbers out of all proportion to their means. On the morning
of April 28, the service in the church of St. Mary's was violently
interrupted. On the following Sunday, Eberlin, the apostate
Franciscan, commenced a course of sermons, which he continued
for several days with his customary vehemence and abuse.

1 Eitner, p. 68. According to Eitner we learn from local sources,
" that, in view of the state of affairs, the council thought it the most
prudent course to do as in 1521, and to set the peasants and the citizens
against the common foe, the clergy of Mayence, in order thus to
satisfy the coarser instincts of the mob and to divert their thoughts
from dangerous projects."

2 Ibid., p. 98. 3 Ibid., p. 70, n. 1.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 355

Exactly a week after the coming of the peasants they passed a
resolution in the Mainzer Hof that the number of parishes should
be reduced to ten, including the Collegiate church of St. Mary's,
and that in all these parish churches " the pure Word of God
should be preached without any additions, man-made laws,
decrees or doctrines." As for the pastors, they were to be ap
pointed and removed by the congregation. This was equivalent to
sentencing the old worship to death. On the same day an order
was issued to all the parish churches and monasteries to abstain
in future from reciting or singing Matins, Vespers or Mass. The
only man who was successful in evading the prohibition was Dr.
Conrad Klinge, the courageous guardian of the Franciscans, who
at the hospital continued to preach in the old way to crowded
audiences.

Most of the beneficed clergy now quitted the town, as the
council refused to undertake any responsibility on their behalf ;
and as they were forbidden to resume Divine Worship or even to
celebrate Mass in private, at the gate of the town they were
subjected to a thorough search lest they should have any priestly
property concealed about them. The magistrates sought to
extort from the clergy who remained, admissions which might
serve as some justification for their conduct. The post of
preacher at the Dom, after it had been refused by Eberlin, who
had at length taken fright at the demagogic spirit now abroad,
was bestowed upon one of Luther's immediate followers ; the
new preacher was Dr. Johann Lang, an " apostate, renegade,
uxorious monk," as a contemporary chronicler calls him.

All tokens of any authority of the Archbishop of Mayence in
the town were obliterated, and the archiepiscopal jurisdiction
was declared to be at an end. Eobanus Hessus wrote gleefully
of the ruin of the " popish " foe. " We have driven away the
Bishop of Mayence, for ever. All the monks have been expelled,
the nuns turned out, the canons sent away, all the temples and
even the money-boxes in the churches plundered ; the common
wealth is now established and taxes and customs houses have
been done away with. Again we are now free."1 Here the
statement that the clergy of Mayence had been expelled " for
ever " proved incorrect, for the rights of the over-lord were
soon to be re-established.

The magistrates were the first to fall ; they were deposed, and
the lower-class burghers and the peasants replaced them by two
committees, one to represent the town, the other the country.
In the latter committee the excited ringleaders of the peasantry
gave vent to threatening speeches against the former municipal
government, and such wild words as " Kill these spectres, blow
out their brains " were heard.2

The actual wording of the resolutions passed by both the
committees was principally the work of preachers of the new
faith. Eberlin, too, was consulted as to how best to draw up

1 Janssen, " Hist, of the German People " (Engl. trans.), 4, p. 304.

2 Eitner, p. 85 f.

356 THE APOSTASY

" the articles in accordance with the Bible," but he cautiously
declined to have anything to do with this, and declared that their
demands seemed to him to be exorbitant and that, " the Evangel
would not help them." The Lutheran preachers also exerted
themselves to bring about the reinstatement of the magistrates.
It is said that on April 30, in every quarter of the town, a minister
of the new doctrine preached to the citizens and country people
to the following effect : " You have now by your good and
Christian acts and deeds emancipated yourselves altogether from
the Court at Mayence and its jurisdiction, which, according to
Divine justice and Holy Scripture, should have no temporal
authority whatever. But in order that this freedom may not
lead you astray, there must be some authorities over you, and
therefore you must for the future recognise the worthy magistrates
of Erfurt as your rulers," etc.1

The words of the preachers prevailed, and the newly elected
councillors became the head of a sort of republic. The burdens
of the town increased to an oppressive extent, however, and the
peasants who had returned to their villages groaned more than
ever under the weight of the taxes. Financial difficulties con
tinued to increase.

Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, the councillors
gave their sanction on May 9, 1525, " under the new seal,"
to the amended articles, twenty -eight in number, which had
been drafted by the town and peasant committees during the
days of storm and stress. The very first article made
obligatory the preaching of " the pure Word of God," and
gave to each congregation the right to choose its own pastors.
" The gist of the remaining articles was the appointment
of a permanent administrative council to give a yearly
account, and to impose no new taxes without the knowledge
and sanction of both burghers and country subjects."

In accepting the articles it was agreed that Luther's
opinion on them should be ascertained, a decision which
seems to show that the peasants and burghers, though
probably not the councillors themselves, reckoned upon the
weighty sanction of Wittenberg. Yet about May 4 Luther
had finished his booklet " Against the murderous Peasants "
(above p. 201), which was far from favourable to seditious

1 " The peasant rising in the neighbourhood of Erfurt did nothing
but harm [from the material point of view]. A phase in the business
decay of the once flourishing community, a desperate attempt to mend
what was wrong by what was worse, it merely sapped the strength of
the town and so prepared the way for the event which some
hundred and forty years later robbed her for ever of her political
independence " (Eitner, ibid., p. 108).

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 357

movements such as that of Erfurt. The council invited
him by letter, on May 10, to come to Erfurt with Melanch-
thon "and establish the government of the town," as
Melanchthon puts it ("ad constituendum urbis statum").1
Luther, however, did not accept the invitation, and a month
later the council sent him a copy of the articles, requesting a
written opinion. It is difficult to believe that the Erfurt
magistrates were not aware of Luther's growing bitterness
against the peasants, which is attested by the pamphlets
he wrote at the time, or that they were incapable of drawing
the obvious conclusion as to his reply.2 " If the council in
taking this step," says Eitner, " was relying on Luther's
known attitude towards all revolutionary movements, and
hoped to make an end of the inconvenient demands
of the people by means of the Reformer's powerful
words, then their expectation was fully realised. Both
Luther's letter (i.e. his answer to the council), and
his written notes on the copy of the articles sent him,
are full of irony expressing the displeasure of one whose
advice was so much in request, but whose interference in
the peasant movement, in spite of his good intentions, had
thus far met with so little success. . . . The very articles
which the authors had most at heart were submitted by
Luther to a relentless and somewhat pointless criticism. . . .
Thus we see in a comparatively trivial case what has long
been acknowledged of his action generally, viz. that Luther's
interference in the Peasant-War cannot be altogether
justified. . . . His conduct shattered his reputation, both
in the empire and in his second native town [Erfurt], and
paved the way for the inevitable reaction."3

Luther, in his reply to the " Honourable, prudent
and beloved " members of the Erfurt council,4 declares

1 It is thus that Melanchthon describes the object of the invitation
in a letter to Camerarius of May 19, 1525, " Corp. reform.," 1, p. 744.

2 It is true that the council declared on this occasion " that it was
by no means its mind, desire or intention to oppress the people with
out necessity, contrary to evangelical equity and right, or to refuse
them anything which it was its duty to permit or tolerate." Eitner,
ibid., 2, p. 93, where he remarks : "It will probably be best not to
attribute any duplicity to the councillors." 3 Eitner, ibid., p. 94.

4 On September 19 (according to Enders), 1525, in " Briefe," ed.
De Wette, 6, p. 59, and Erl. ed., 56, p. xii. (" Brief wechsel," 5, p. 243).
The first sentences quoted are contained in the letter itself, the others
in the marginal notes to the various articles, which inDe Wette's collec
tion are printed together with the articles themselves after the letter.

358 THE APOSTASY

in the very first sentences that the Twenty-eight Articles
were so " ill-advised " that " little good could come
of them " even were he present himself at Erfurt ;
he is of opinion that certain people, who " are better
off than they deserve," are putting on airs at the ex
pense of the council, constitute a danger to the common
weal, and, with "unheard-of audacity and wickedness,"
wish to " turn things upside down." Things must never
be permitted to come to such a pass that the councillors
fear the common people and become their servants ; the
common people must be quiet and entrust all to the honour
able magistrates to be set right, "lest the Princes have
occasion to take up arms against Erfurt on account of such
unwarrantable conduct." Luther's new sovereign, the
Elector Johann, had just been assisting in the suppression
of the peasant rising. He was in entire sympathy with the
Wittenberg Professor, whom he so openly protected and
favoured, and doubtless they had discussed together the
state of affairs at Erfurt. In his written reply Luther asks
whether it is not " seditious " to refuse to pay the Elector
the sum due to him for acting as protector of the city.
" Did they, then, esteem so lightly the Prince and the security
of the town, which, as a matter of fact, was something not
to be paid for in money ? " Their demand really signified
either that " no one was to protect the town of Erfurt, or
that the Princes were to relinquish their claim to payment
and yet continue to protect the town."

The demand that the congregations of the parishes should
appoint their own pastors Luther considered particularly
inadmissible ; it was " seditious that the parishes should
wish to appoint and dismiss their own pastors without
reference to the councillors, as though the councillors, in
whom authority was vested, were not concerned in what
the town might do." He insists that " the councillors have
the right to know what sort of persons are holding office in
the town."

Concerning some of the articles which dealt with taxes
and imposts, he points out that the business is not his con
cern, since these are temporal matters. Of the proposal to
re-establish the decayed University of Erfurt he says :
" This article -is the best of all." Of two of the articles he
notes : " Both these will do," one being that, for the future,

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 359

openly immoral persons and prostitutes of all classes were
not to be tolerated, nor the common houses of public women,
and the other, that every debtor, whether to the council or
the community, should be " faithfully admonished no
matter who he might be." Concerning the former of these
two articles, however, we may remark, that a house of
correction for the punishment of light women had existed at
Erfurt under the Archbishop's rule, but had been razed to
the ground by the very framers of the articles as soon as the
peasants entered the town.

The principal thing, in Luther's opinion, was to place the
reins in the hands of the magistrates, so that they may not
sit there like an " idol," " bound hand and foot," " while
the horses saddle and bridle their driver " ; on the con
trary, the aim of the articles seemed to him to be, to reduce
the councillors to be mere figureheads, and to let " the
rabble manage everything."1 The " rabble " was just then
Luther's bugbear.

The clergy who had quitted the city addressed, on May 30,
a written complaint to the Cardinal of Mayence, with an
account of the proceedings. On June 8 they also appealed to
Johann, the Saxon Elector, and to Duke George of Saxony,
asking for their mediation, since they were the " protectors
and liege lords " of their Church. They also did all they
could with the council to recover their rights. The coun
cillors were, however, merely rude, and replied that the
proud priests might ask as much as they pleased but would
get no redress. This was what caused them to complain to
their secular protectors that they were being treated worse
than the meanest peasant. Duke George advised them to
await the result of the negotiations which, as he knew, were
proceeding between the town of Erfurt and the Cardinal.

The Lutheran Elector, on the other hand, entered into
closer relations with the town-council of Erfurt, accepting
with good grace their appeal for help, their protestation of
submission and obedience to his rule, and the explicit
assurance of the councillors at the Weimar conference, on

1 This is Luther's disdainful note to Art. 7, in itself a quite reason
able one, viz. " That the present councillors shall give an account
of all expenditure and receipts." His dislike for the " rabble " here
made Luther unjust, and not here alone. His question concerning
Art. 6 (on the protection of the " wards and trades ") is not to the
point : "If councillors are not trusted, why appoint them ? "

360 THE APOSTASY

June 22, " that they would stand by the true and unfeigned
Word of God as pious and faithful Christians, and, in support
of the same, stake life and limb, with the help of God's grace."
Thereupon the Elector promised them, on June 23, that,
" should they suffer any inconvenience or attack because
of the Word of God," he, as their " liege lord, ruler and
protector," would " stand by them and afford them protec
tion to the best of his ability," since " the Word of God and
the Holy Evangel were likewise dear to him." In point of
fact he did espouse the cause of the inhabitants of Erfurt,
though, like Duke George, it was his wish to see a peaceful
settlement arrived at between the town and its rightful
over-lord.1

The crafty councillors were actually negotiating with the
representatives of the Cardinal of Maycnce at the very time
when they were seeking the protection of Saxony. The
over-lord whose rights they had outraged, through his vicar,
had made known his peremptory demands to the council
on May 26, viz. entire restitution, damages, expulsion of the
Lutheran sect, re-establishment of the old worship and
payment of an indemnity. In the event of refusal he
threatened them with the armed interference of the Swabian
League. The threat took effect, for the Swabian League at
that time was feared, and disturbers of the peace had had
occasion to feel its strength. The hint of armed interference
proved all the more effective when Duke George advised the
inhabitants of Erfurt to come to terms with the Mayence
vicar and abolish Lutheranism, as otherwise they would
have to expect " something further."

The council therefore assumed a conciliatory attitude
towards Mayence, and negotiations concerning the restitu
tion to be made were commenced at a conference at Fulda
on August 25, 1525. After protracted delays these ter
minated with the Treaty of Hammelburg on February 5,
1530. This was, " from the political point of view, an utter
defeat for the inhabitants of Erfurt."2 The council was not
only obliged to recognise the supremacy of the Archbishop,
but also to re-erect all buildings which had been destroyed,
and to return everything that had been misapplied ; in
addition to this, for the loss of taxes and other revenues,
the council was to pay the Archbishop 2500 gulden, and to
1 Eitner, ibid., pp. 102, 104. 2 Ibid., p. 107.

PROCEEDINGS AT ERFURT 361

the two Collegiate churches, for losses sustained, 1200 marks
of fine silver. Both these churches were to be handed over
for Catholic worship. The reinstated over-lord, however,
declared, for his part, that, " As regards the other churches
and matters of faith and ritual, we hereby and on this occa
sion neither give nor take, sanction nor forbid, anything to
any party."1

Thus the rescinding of the innovations was for the present
deferred, and Luther had every reason to be satisfied with
what had been effected in a town to which he was attached
by many links. How little gratitude he showed to Arch
bishop Albert, and how fiercely his hatred and animus
against the cautious Cardinal would occasionally flame up,
will be seen from facts to be mentioned elsewhere.

Among the few Erfurt monks who, though expelled from
their monastery, remained true to their profession and to
the Church, there was one who attained to a great age
and who is mentioned incidentally by Flacius Illyricus. He
well remembered the first period of Luther's life in Erfurt,
his zeal for the Church and solicitude for the observance of
the Rule.2

When considering Luther's intervention in Erfurt matters,
and his personal action there, one thought obtrudes
itself.

When Luther, now quite a different man and in vastly
altered circumstances, returned to Erfurt on the occasion
of the visit referred to above, is it not likely that he recalled
his earlier life at Erfurt, where he had spent happy days of
interior contentment, as is shown by the letters he wrote
before his priestly ordination ? In one of the sermons he
delivered there, in October, 1522, he refers to his student days
at Erfurt, but it does not appear that he ever seriously

1 Eitner, ibid., p. 107.

2 Matthias Flacius, " Clarissimce qucedam notes verce ac falsce
religionis" 1549 (Vienna Court Library), in showing " Holiness " as
a mark sufficiently discernible in Luther's church and person. Accord
ing to O. Clemen, the Erfurt monastery dragged on a miserable exist
ence until 1525. On July 31 of that year, Adam Horn, the Prior,
received from the Vicar-General of the Congregation, Johann von
Spangenberg, permission to leave the monastery since he was no
longer safe in it. " Aus den letzten Tagen des Erfurter Augustiner-
klosters," in " Theol. Studien und Kritiken," 1899, p. 278 ff. It may
be that Usingen quitted Erfurt at that time for the same reason
(above, p. 337). The last trace of Nathin is found at the Chapter of
the Order at Leipzig in 1523, at which he represented the Erfurt priory.

362 THE APOSTASY

reflected on the contrast presented by the convictions he
held at that time on the Church and his new ideas on faith
and works. His allusions to his Erfurt recollections are
neither serious nor grateful towards his old school. He
speaks scofnngly of his learned Erfurt opponents, some of
whom he had been acquainted with previously, as " knights
of straw." " Yes, they prate, we are Doctors and Masters.
. . . Well, if a title settles the matter, I also became a
Bachelor here, and then a Master and then again a Bachelor.
I also went to school with them, and I know and am con
vinced that they do not understand their own books."1

Another circumstance must be taken into account.
Whereas in later life he can scarcely speak of his early years
as a monk without telling his hearers how he had passed
from an excessive though purely exterior holiness-by-works
to his great discovery, viz. to the knowledge of a gracious God,
in 1522 he is absolutely silent regarding these " inward
experiences " ; yet his very theme, viz. the contrast between
the new Evangel and the " sophistical holiness-by-works "
preferred by Catholics, and likewise the familiar Erfurt
scene of his early life as a monk, should, one would think,
have invited him to speak of the matter here.2

While Luther was seeking to expel by force the popish
" wolves," more especially the monks and nuns, from the
places within reach of the new Evangel, an enemy was
growing up in his own camp in the shape of the so-called
fanatics ; their existence can be traced back as far as his
Wartburg days, and his first misunderstanding with Carl-
stadt ; these, by their alliance with Carlstadt, who had
been won over to their ideas, and with the help of men
like Thomas Miinzer, had of late greatly increased their
power, thanks to the social conditions which were so favour
able to their cause.

1 " Werks," Weim. ed., 10, 3, p. 353 ; Erl. ed., 162, p. 438.

2 We may here mention what K. A. Meissinger, of Strasburg, says :
" The period previous to 1517 has been looked upon as Luther's
age of immaturity and shyness, and his own numerous statements
on the subject have contributed not a little to this fiction. The legend
of Martin, the zealous young Papist, seeking to get to heaven by his
monkish practices and wasting away in utter despair, gives (a fact
which has become apparent only of recent years) quite a false picture
of that decisive and truly momentous period in the inward growth of
the great Reformer " (" Der junge Luther," Frankfurter Ztng., 1910,
No. 300).

AGAINST THE FANATICS 363

6. Sharp Encounters with the Fanatics

If, on the one hand, the antagonism which Luther was
obliged to display towards the fanatical Anabaptists en
dangered his work, on the other the struggle was in many
respects to his advantage.

His being obliged to withstand the claim constantly made
by the fanatics to inspiration by the Holy Ghost served as
a warning to him to exercise caution and moderation in
appealing to a higher call in the case of his own enterprise ;
being compelled also to invoke the assistance of the au
thorities against the fanatics' subversion of the existing order
of things, he was naturally obliged to be more reticent him
self and to refrain from preaching revolution in the interests
of his own teaching. We even find him at times desisting
from his claim to special inspiration and guidance by the
" spirit " in the negotiations entered into on account of the
Milnzer business ; this, however, he does with a purpose
and in opposition with his well-known and usual view. In
place of his real ideas, as expressed by him both before and
after this period, he, for a while, prefers to deprecate any
use of force or violence, and counsels his sovereign to intro
duce the innovations gradually, pointing out the most
suitable methods with patience and prudence.

At first he was anxious that indulgence should be observed
even in dealing with the Anabaptists, but later on he in
voked vigorously the aid of the authorities.

In reality he himself was borne along by principles akin to
those of the fanatics whose ideas were, as a matter of fact,
an outcome of his own undertaking. His own writings
exhibit many a trait akin to their pseudo-mysticism. In
the end his practical common sense was more than a match
for these pestering opponents, who for a time gave him so
much trouble. His learning and education raised him far
above them and made the religious notions of the Ana
baptists abhorrent to him, while his public position at the
University, as well as his official and personal relations with
the sovereign, ill-disposed him to the demagogism of the
fanatics and their efforts to win over the common people to
their side.

The fanatical aim of Thomas Miinzer, the quondam
Catholic priest who had worked as a preacher of the new

864 THE APOSTASY

faith at Allstedt, near Eisleben, since 1523, was the exter
mination by violence of all impious persons, and the
setting up of a Kingdom of God formed of all the righteous
here on earth, after the ideal of apostolic times. This tenet,
rather than rebaptism, was the mark of his followers. The
rebaptism of adults, which was practised by the sect, was
merely due to their belief that an active faith was essential
for the reception of the sacraments, whilst children of tender
years were incapable of any faith at all.

As a beginning of the war against the " idolatry " of the
old Church, Miinzer caused the Pilgrimage Chapel at
Maldcrbach, near Eisleben, \vhere a miraculous picture of
Our Lady was venerated, to be destroyed in April, 1524.
He then published a fiery sermon he had recently preached,
in which he exhorted the great ones and all friends of the
Evangel among the people at once to abolish Divine Worship
as it had hitherto been practised. The sermon was sent to
the Electoral Court by persons who wrere troubled about the
rising, and who begged that Miinzer might be called to
account. The sermon was also forwarded to Luther by
Spalatin, the Court Chaplain, evidently in order that Luther
might take some steps to obviate the danger. In point of
fact, Luther's eagle eye took in the situation at a glance, and
he at once decided to intervene \vith the utmost vigour.
With Miinzer's spirit he was already acquainted through
personal observation, so he said, and now he realised yet
more clearly that its effect would be to let the mob loose,
with the consequence that " heavenly spirits " of every sort
would soon be claiming to interfere in the direction of his
own enterprise.

Luther at once composed a clever and powerful writing
entitled " A Circular to the Princes of Saxony Concerning
the Spirit of Revolt." This appeared in the last days of
July, 1524. To it we shall return later, for it is of great
psychological interest.

Miinzer was dismissed from his situation, and went to
Muhlhausen, where the apostate monk, Heinrich Pfeifer,
had already prepared the ground, and thence to Nuremberg.
At Nuremberg he brought out, in September, 1524, his
" Hochverursachte Schutzrede und Antwort wider das
geistlose sanftlebende Fleisch zu Wittenberg" in reply to
Luther's Circular, above mentioned. He then recommenced

AGAINST THE FANATICS 365

his restless wanderings through South Germany and Switzer
land. He remained for some time with the ex-priest and
professor of theology, Balthasar Hubmaier, then pastor of
the new faith at Waldshut. On his return to Miihlhausen, in
December, he put into execution his fantastic communistic
scheme, which lasted until he and the seditious peasants
were defeated in the encounter at Frankenhausen on May 15,
1525 ; his execution for a while put an end to the endeavours
of the fanatics. Nevertheless, in other places, more particu
larly at Minister during the famous Reign of Terror from
1532-1535, the fanaticism of the Anabaptists again broke out
under even worse forms.

The short circular, " On the Spirit of Revolt,"1 referred to
above as a document curiously illustrative of Luther's
psychology, is not important in the sense of furnishing a true
picture of his inner thoughts and feelings. Conveying as it
does a petition and admonition to the Princes, it is naturally
worded politically and with great caution, and was also
manifestly intended for the general public. Nevertheless its
author, even where he clothes his thoughts in the strange
and carefully chosen dress best calculated to serve the
purpose he had in view, affords us an interesting glimpse
into his mode of action. He also shows throughout the
whole circular in what light he wishes to see his own higher
mission regarded.

Luther commences his writing with a complaint regarding
Satan. It is his habit, he says, when nothing else avails, " to
attack the Word of God by means of false spirits and teachers."
Hence, because he now perceives that the Evangel, though
assailed by « raging Princes " (the opponents of the Saxon
Princes), was nevertheless growing and thriving all the more, he
had made a nest at Allstedt and caused his spirits there to pro
claim that, " it was a bad thing that faith and charity and the
Cross of Christ were being preached at Wittenberg. You must
hear God's voice yourself, they say, and suffer God's action in
you and feel how heavy your load is. It is all nonsense about the
Scriptures [so Luther makes them say], all ' Bible, Bubble,
Babble,' " etc.

Secondly, a charge which was likely to weigh as much or even
more with the Princes, he proceeds, " the same spirit would not
allow the matter to remain one of words, but intended to strike with

1 Ed. E. L. Enders in " Neudrucke deutscher Literaturwerke "
Hallo, 1893, No. 118, p. 3 ff. ; " Werke," Weim. ed., 15, p. 210 ff.
Erl. ed., 53, p. 256 ff. (" Brief wechsel," 4, p. 372).

366 THE APOSTASY

the fist, to oppose the authorities by force and to bring about an
actual revolt." As against this he points out very skilfully, that,
according to God's ordinance, the Princes are the " rulers of the
world," and that Christ had said : " My Kingdom is not of this
world " (John xviii. 36). Hence his urgent exhortation to them
is "to prevent such disorders and to anticipate the revolt."

As to the spirit on which the fanatics pride themselves, it had
not yet, so Luther declares, been proved, but " goes about work
ing its own sweet will " without being willing to vindicate itself
before two or three witnesses ; Miinzer, according to Luther's
previous experience of him, had no wish to present himself at
Wittenberg (to be examined); "he was afraid of the soup and
preferred to stay among his own followers, who say yes to all his
excellent speeches."

"If I, who am so deficient in the spirit and hear no heavenly
voices," so he humbly assures the Princes, " had uttered such
words against my Papists, how they would have cried out on me
' Gewunnen ' and have stopped my mouth ! I cannot glorify
myself or defy others with such great words ; I am a poor,
wretched man and far from carrying through my enterprise in a
high-handed way, I began it with great fear and trembling, as
St. Paul, who surely might have boasted of the heavenly voice,
confesses concerning himself (1 Cor. ii.)." 1

Luther now comes to the proof that, unlike the fanatics,
his cause was from God, that it was very different from
Munzer's enterprise, that he was being unfairly attacked by
this rival, and that consequently his sovereign should support
his undertaking as he had previously done. Here he un
doubtedly meets with greater difficulties than when he made
the off-hand statement that Munzer's spirit was a " lying
devil, and an evil devil," and that " storming and fanati
cism " and acts of violence by the rabble " Mr. Omnes "
must not be permitted.

From the burden of proof for his own mission from above,
consisting in many instances of mere hints and allusions, we may
select the following considerations submitted by him to his
sovereign.

First : I proceed " without boasting and defiance," with
humility, indeed with " fear." " How humbly, to begin with,
did I attack the Pope, how I implored and besought, as my first
writings testify ! " — We have seen that Luther's writings and
the steps he took from the outset of the struggle " testify," as a
matter of fact, to something quite different. Here he says never
a word of the communications he believed he had received from
the Spirit of God and his experience of being carried away by

1 " Neudrucke," p. 7 ; " Werke," Weim. ed., 15, p. 214.

AGAINST THE FANATICS 367

God. We may also add that his appeal to the example of Paul
in the passage of Corinthians referred to above, when speaking

of the " trembling and fear " he endured, was scarcely in place,
since it was no question of actual fear in the case of the Apostle,
as Paul, shortly afterwards, in the sublime consciousness of his
Divine mission goes on to say : we are God's coadjutors . . .
according to the grace of God which is given to me as a wise
architect I have laid the foundation (1 Cor. hi. 9, 10). Paul
merely states, that he is unable to speak to the Corinthians as
to spiritual men, because they were still " babes in Christ," not
as though anything were wanting in him, for the testimony

' of the Spirit and of power " never failed him.

A second point upon which Luther lays great stress is, that,
though I was of so humble and " poor a spirit " I nevertheless
performed "noble and exalted spiritual works," which Miinzer
certainly has not done. I stood up for the Evangel, which I
preached in an " honourable and manly " fashion ; indeed " my
very life was in danger " : "I have had to risk life and limb
for it and I cannot but glory in it," he says, again with reference
to Paul, " as St. Paul also was obliged to do ; though it is
foolishness and I should prefer to leave it to the lying spirits."1
What exactly are the instances that he is so unwilling to relate
of his noble scorn for death ? "I stood up at Leipzig to dispute
before a most dangerous assembly. I went to Augsburg without
escort to appear before my greatest enemy. And I took my
stand at Worms before the Emperor and the whole realm,
knowing well beforehand that the pledge of a safe conduct would
be broken, and that savage malice and cunning were directed
against me. But, poor and weak as I then was, my will was
nevertheless so determined that, had I known there were as
many devils waiting for me as there were tiles on the roofs of
Worms, I should still have ridden thither, and yet I had as yet
heard nothing of heavenly voices and ' God's burdens and
works ' " (such as the fanatics pretended they had experienced).
He commits his cause to Christ the Lord, so he declares, if He
will support him then all will be well, but "before men and any
assembly he is ready to answer boldly for himself " (as he had
done at Leipzig, Augsburg and Worms).

^ Miinzer, in his " Schutzrede," was not slow to answer Luther's
" boasting " concerning his three appearances in public. It must
be touched upon here for the sake of completeness, although it
must be borne in mind that it is the utterance of an opponent.
Miinzer calls Luther repeatedly, and not merely on account of
this boasting, " Dr. Liar " and " Lying Luther." He says to
him : " Why do you throw dust in the eyes of the people ? you
were very well off indeed at Leipzig. You rode out of the city
crowned with gilly-flowers and drank good wine at Melchior
Lother's ? Nor were you in any danger at Augsburg [as a
matter of fact every precaution had been taken], for Staupitz the
oracle stood at your side. . . . That you appeared before the
1 "Neudrucke," p. 9 = 215.

368 THE APOSTASY

Empire at Worms at all was thanks to the German nobles whom
you had cajoled and honeyed, for they fully expected, that, by
your preaching you would obtain for them Bohemian gifts of
monasteries and foundations which you are now promising to the
Princes. Therefore if you had wavered at Worms, you would
have been stabbed by the nobles sooner than allowed to go free,
as everyone knows. . . . You made use of wiles and cunning
towards your own followers. You allowed yourself to be taken
captive by your own councillors [and brought to the Wartburg]
and made out that you were ill-used. Anyone ignorant of your
knavery would no doubt swear by all the Saints that you were
a pious Martin. Sleep softly, dear lump of flesh. I should prefer
to sniff you roasting in your defiance under the anger of God."1
The falsity of Luther's assertion, that the promise of a safe
conduct had not been kept at Worms, has been already pointed
out (p. 69). The reason of his appearing at Augsburg without
an escort for the journey there and back, was, that the Elector
trusted Cardinal Cajetan and did not wish Luther to apply
for one.

In proof of his being in the right Luther, in the third place,
points emphatically to his learning and his success. His cause
was thus based on a much firmer foundation than that of the
Allstedt fanatic. " I know and am certain that by the Grace of
God I am more learned in the Scripture than all the sophists and
Papists, but God has thus far graciously preserved me from
pride, and will continue to preserve me." " I have done more
harm to the Pope without the use of fists than a powerful king
could have done " ; " my words have emptied many a convent."
These fanatics " utilise our victory and enjoy it, take wives and
relax papal laws, though it was not they who bore the brunt of
the fighting."

Fourthly : "I know that we who possess and understand
the Gospel — though we be but poor sinners — have the right
spirit, or as Paul says [Rom. viii; 23] ' primitias spiritus,' the
first-fruits of the spirit, though we may not have the fulness of
the spirit. . . . We know what faith, charity and the cross are.
. . . Hence we know and can judge whether a doctrine is true
or false, just as we are able to discern and judge this lying
spirit," etc.

Fifthly we must consider the fruits of our teaching. These
are those mentioned by St. Paul (Gal. v. 22 f., Rom. viii. 13),
viz: "charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longa
nimity and mildness " ; Paul also says, "that the deeds of the
flesh must be mortified and the old Adam, together with all his
works, crucified writh Christ. In a word, the fruit of our spirit is
the keeping of the ten commandments of God." The Allstedt
spirit, he adds, ought really to bring forth yet higher fruits since
it purports to be a higher spirit. If fruits are lacking then
surely we also may admit that, " alas, we do not as much as we

1 In " Neudrucke," this work also is edited by Enders (p. 19 ff.).
The passage will be found on p. 37 f.

AGAINST THE FANATICS 369

ought."— It is notorious enough that Luther might have made
still greater admissions of this sort. Nevertheless, he is able to
point to " abundant fruit of the spirit produced by God's Grace
among our followers," and is ready, " if it comes to boasting," to
set his own person, " which is the meanest and most sinful of all
against all the fruits of the Allstedt spirit, however greatly the
fanatics may blame my life." In order, however, the better to
safeguard himself on this point, he remarks that, "on account
the life, the doctrine " must not be condemned, as this spirit
takes offence at our feeble life." It appears that Miinzer had
spoken very strongly against Luther and the goings on at
VA ittenberg.

The one sentence in Luther's writing which must have
made the deepest impression on his princely readers, and
on their courtiers, was that concerning the appropriation of
the churches and convents, which had been surrendered in
consequence of the innovations. " Let the Rulers of the
land do what they please with them ! " This invitation, in
the mind of those in power, was quite sufficient to make up
for the deficiencies of the other arguments and to be con
sidered as an irrefragable proof of the justice of the cause.

Luther's higher mission being in his own opinion so firmly
established that he had no cause to fear any man, he goes so
far in his Circular as to propose that his Anabaptist foes
should not be hindered. " Do not scruple to let them preach
freely ! " He for his part will gird himself for the fight,
and we know of how much the force and violence of his
eloquence was capable. Confident that no one could stand
against his written or spoken word, he cries : " Let the
spirits fall upon one another and fight it out. . . . Where
there is a struggle and a battle some must fall and be
wounded, but whoever fights manfully receives the crown."
As a matter of fact, however, he was speedily to withdraw
this too-confident challenge ; indeed, as we shall see, he later
went so far as to demand the infliction of the death-penalty
upon those who dared to differ in doctrine from himself, viz.
the Anabaptists and fanatics, establishing the necessity of
this on passages from the Old Testament which speak of the
execution of false prophets.1

1 In vol. vi., xxxviii. 1, it will be shown that the ground of his
demand for the execution of the Anabaptists was not merely the revolu
tionary character of the sect, but also the crime of religion involved

370 THE APOSTASY

Mlinzer's party too had appealed in defence of their
violent work of destruction to the precepts of the Old
Testament (Gen. xi. 2 ; Deut. vii. 12 ; xii. 2, 3 : " Destroy
the altars and break down the images," etc.). Hence Luther
deemed it necessary to point out in his Circular against them,
that " a certain Divine command then existed for such acts
of destruction which is not given to us at the present
day."

It was no uncommon thing for the Bible to furnish such
matters of dispute for the warring elements ; in the question
of the Divine commission it ever occupied the foreground.

Luther solemnly raised the Bible on high and, to the
Anabaptists and other teachers of the new faith who differed
from him, protested that he and he alone had discovered
the Word of God and was the appointed teacher. Yet all
those whom he addressed said the selfsame thing and even
maintained that they could show better proofs of their
mission than Luther. How, then, was the question to be
decided ?

The Catholic Church has never permitted individual doctors
to set up their own as the authentic interpretation of the
Bible ; she declared herself to be the only divinely appointed
supreme authority qualified to determine the true sense
of the written Word of God, she herself having received the
living Word of God, together with authorisation to guard the
whole body of Divine teaching, the written inclusive, in its
primitive purity, and to proclaim it with an infallible voice.
She appeals to the words of Christ : " Teach all nations,"
" He that hears you, hears me," " You shall be witnesses
for me to the ends of the earth," " I am with you, even to the
consummation of the world."1

Outside this safe rule there is nothing but arbitrary judg
ment and confusion. Luther and those he called " heretics "
accused each other of the most flagrant arbitrariness, and
not without cause. They applied to each other in derision
the phrase : " Bible, Bubble, Babble," for indeed it was a
confusion of tongues. It was not merely Luther who applied
the phrase to Miinzer's party, for, according to Agricola,
Miinzer mocked the Lutherans with the same words when
they ventured to attack him with biblical texts. The
Anabaptist Conrad Grebel, of Zurich, writing to Miinzer on

1 Matthew xxviii. 19, Luke x. 16, Acts i. 8, Matthew xxviii. 20.

AGAINST THE FANATICS 371

September 5, 1524, says : " You have on your side the
Bible, which Luther derides as ' Bible, Bubble, Babble, etc.' J>1
No one could prevent the fanatics from availing them
selves of the freedom of private interpretation which Luther
had set up as a principle. Miinzer, no less than Luther,
respected the Bible as such, and knew how to make use of
it skilfully. He also, declared, exactly as Luther had done,
that he taught the people " only according to Holy Scrip
ture," and, " please God, never preached his own conceits."2
According to Luther's own principles, Miinzer's faction
had also a perfect right to make the " outward Word " (the
Bible) agree with the " inward Word," which they believed
they heard. When Luther, at a later date, insists so strongly
on the need of accepting the outward Word as well as the
inner worth, this was really a retreat on his part (see vol.
iv., xxviii. 1); moreover, by the outward Word he here
means the Bible as he explained it.

To force those who were unwilling to accept the new,
purely personal and subjective interpretation, and to do so
without the authority of the Church, whose claims had been
definitively discarded, was to exercise an intolerable
spiritual despotism. We can well understand how Miinzer
came to complain, in one of his letters, that Luther in his
Circular-Letter " ramps in as ferociously and hideously as a
mighty tyrant,"3 He could well complain in particular of
Luther's demand, that the spirit which spoke in Miinzer
should submit to an examination before the Lutheran
tribunal at Wittenberg previous to being acknowledged
as a spirit which had been duly called. This Luther required,
assuring his followers that Miinzer's party was execrated
even by the Papists, that it had no real commission and
could show no miracles on its behalf. He was anxious to
retain for himself the " first-fruits of the Spirit." To this the
retort of his foes was that the first-fruits of the Spirit were
theirs, belonging to them by virtue of heavenly testimony.
This fellow Luther wishes to ascribe the first-fruits of the
Spirit to himself, wrote Grebel to Miinzer, and yet he com-

1 Passages quoted by Enders, " Briefwechsel Luthers," 4, p. 373
n. 3. " Neudrucke," p. 35.

3 Letter of August 3, 1524, to the Elector of Saxony, in Forste-
mann's " Neues Urkundenbuch zur Gesch. der Reformation," p. 248.
Enders, "Neudrucke," p. v.

372 THE APOSTASY

poses such a " wicked booklet." I know his intentions ;
they are thoroughly tyrannical. " I see he means to give
you up to the headsman's axe and hand you over to the
Princes."1

And yet, in spite of other differences between himself and
the Anabaptists, Luther found himself in agreement with
them not merely on the principle of free interpretation of
the Bible but also in the stress he lays on the inspiration
from above supposed to be bestowed on all. Luther did not
deny that individual inspiration, the " whisper " from
on high, as he termed it, was one of the means by which
faith might be arrived at ; on the contrary, the only question
for him was how far this might go.

Luther was fond of insisting that only a heart tried by
temptation was able to arrive at the understanding of the
words of Scripture and of religious truths in general. Miinzer,
too, demands this preliminary on the part of the would-be
theologian, though he does so in rather more fantastic
language. Study of Tauler's mystioism had filled his mind,
even more than Luther's, with confused notions. On the
appearance of Luther's Circular-Letter, he offered to submit
to an examination of his spirit before the whole of Christen
dom. Those were to be summoned from all nations who
had " endured overwhelming temptations in matters of
faith and had arrived at despair of heart." These words we
find in a letter addressed to the Elector of Saxony, August 3,
1524. 2 Luther, however, considered himself far better
acquainted with the abyss of interior sufferings than any
other ; Miinzer must not be allowed to interfere with him
here. " We must not be bold in the Word of God," but
" treat Holy Scripture with reverence and great fear ;
this the rabble and the impudent spirits do not do." Such
things (what Christ says concerning the new birth) " cannot
be understood, unless a man has experienced it, and himself
undergone a spiritual regeneration."3

Luther, in point of fact, met the Anabaptists half-way on
that doctrine of baptism from which they took their name.
Rebaptism he naturally rejected, but he nevertheless
advocated the principle for which the Anabaptists stood,

1 In Enders, " Luthers Briefwechsel," 4, p. 375, n. 8.

2 Enders, " Neudrucke," p. v.

8 " Werke," Erl. ed., 46, p. 265 f. ^

AGAINST THE FANATICS 373

namely, that, for the reception of baptism, faith is necessary
on the part of the catechumen. To overcome the difficulties
which presented themselves in the case of children who had
not yet reached the use of reason, he had recourse to some
curious explanations. There was no help for it ; they also
must believe. Probably they are enlightened at the moment
of baptism, which, in accordance with the Church's ancient
usage, must be administered to them, and, by some Al
mighty action, arc penetrated with that perception of faith
which is essential for the reception of this absolutely neces
sary sacrament, After all, he argues, why should reason be
essential for faith ? Is not reason really hostile to faith ?
Strange indeed were the subterfuges in which he took refuge
in order to evade the consequences which Munzer and his
party rightly drew from his theses.1

But in spite of all they might have in common, and not
withstanding his being the actual father of the detestable
Anabaptist error, he felt himself removed far above the
fanatics by a sense of superiority and Divine support
which no words could adequately express.

His conviction regarding his own supreme mission and his
great gifts and achievements, which increased in strength
as he advanced in years, derived further encouragement
from the utter madness of the fanatics and his success in
overthrowing them.

No sooner had the unhappy Miinzcr been made prisoner
and, after a contrite Catholic confession, been beheaded at
Miihlhauscn, together with Heinrich Pfeifer, a priest, and
twenty-four rebels, than Luther proclaimed the event
throughout Germany in a pamphlet as a plain judgment of
God, which set a seal on his own Evangel and confirmed him
as the teacher of the truth.

In this work, entitled " A frightful story and Divine Judg-

1 The proofs for this wonderful enlightenment of children will be
quoted below in another connection. To the opposition between
faith and reason, Luther appeals in the question of infant baptism,
in " Werke," Erl. ed., 59, p. 53, where he says (in the "Table Talk")
that " reason is of no avail in the matter of faith. And for this very
reason children should be baptised when they are without reason.
Because reason is the greatest hindrance to faith." Ibid., he proves
from the fact that the Christian Church still existed in early ages that
infant baptism is lawful, for it would have ceased to exist had infant
baptism, which was universally upheld by tradition, been invalid.

374 THE APOSTASY

ment ?)1 he says : Had God spoken through him " this [his fall]
would not have occurred. For God does not lie but keeps His
Word Since then Thomas Munzer has fallen, it is plain that he
spoke' and acted through the devil while pretending to do so in
the name of God. . . . More than five thousand," he continues,
" rushed headlong to destruction of body and soul. Alas ! the
pity of it all ! This was what the devil wanted, and what he is
seeking in the case of the seditious peasants." He protests that,
"he feels sorry that the people should thus have perished in
body and soul," but he cannot help endorsing their eternal
reprobation, as far as in him lies ; " to the end they remained
hardened in infidelity, perjury and blasphemy,"2 therefore it
God has so manifestly punished these " noxious, false prophets,
this must serve to teach us to have a great regard for the ' true
Word of God."

" I do not boast of an exalted spirit," Luther says, comparing
himself with the fanatics and their like, but " I do glory in the
great gifts and graces of my God and of His Spirit, and I do so
rightly, so I think, and not without cause. . . . Munzer is
indeed dead, but his spirit is not yet exterminated. . . . The
devil is not asleep, but continues to send out sparks. . . . These
preachers cannot control themselves, the spirit has blinded them
and taken them captive, therefore they are not to be trusted.
Beware and take heed, for Satan has come among the
children of God ! "3

His self-confidence makes it as clear as daylight to him
that he is the true interpreter of the Word of God, whether
against the survivors of Mimzer's party or against the fickle
phantasies of Carlstadt ; this we see particularly in the
caustic, eloquent tracts he launched against the latter:
" To the Christians of Strasburg against the fanatics " and
" Against the heavenly Prophets."

In the latter, a famous book which will be dealt with later
when we have to speak of Carlstadt (vol. iii., xix. 2), Luther
attacks the fanatics along the whole line and unconditionally
lays claim to a higher authority for his own personal
illumination and his Evangel. Yet he does not omit to
point out, in view of the fact that so many repudiated this
Evangel, that its power can only be felt by those whose
consciences have been " humbled and perturbed."

Never for a moment does he relinquish his claim, that his
interpretation of the Bible is the only true one :—

i " Werke," Weim. ed., 18, p. 367 ff. ; Erl. ed., 65, p. 12 ff See
above p 206 f., where some quotations from this writing have already
been given. 2 Ibid., p. 373 = 20.

3 Ibid., 23, p. 280-3 = 30, p. 150.

AGAINST THE FANATICS 375

" What else was wanting in Miinzer," he says, " than that he
did not rightly expound the Word ? ... He should have taught
the pure Gospel ! ... It is a great art to be able to distinguish
rightly between the Law and the Gospel. . . . God's Word is
not all of the same sort, but is diverse. . . . Whoever is able to
distinguish rightly between the Law and the Gospel is given a
high place and called a Doctor of Holy Scripture, for without the
Holy Ghost it is impossible to make this distinction. This I have
experienced myself. ... No Pope, or false Christian, or fanatic,
is able to separate these two [the Law and the Gospel] one from
the other."1 But because he had the "Holy Spirit," Luther was
able to make this supremely great discovery, and found thereby
the key to the Scriptures, on which alone he builds.

" I, for my part, have, by the grace of God, now effected so
much that, thanks be to God, boys and girls of fifteen know
more of Christian doctrine than all the Universities and Doctors
previously did." " I have set men's consciences at rest concern
ing penance, baptism, prayer, crosses, life, death and the Sacra
ment of the Altar, and also ordered the question of marriage, of
secular authority, of the relations of father and mother, wife and
child, father and son, man and maid — in short, every condition of
life, so that all know how to live and how to serve God according
to one's state."2

Given his achievements, Luther was not going too far when
he spoke of himself repeatedly as a "great doctor."3 He also
showed himself extremely sensitive, as we shall soon see, to the
attempts of the sectarians and fanatics to deprive him of the
honour of the first place, to discredit his discovery of the Gospel,
and either to crown themselves with his laurels and possess
themselves of the fruits of his struggles, or, at his expense, to
invent novelties and launch them on the world. Seeing that
Christ is " destroying the Papacy " through him and is bringing
it to its " exspiravit," i.e. to the last gasp, he is naturally annoyed
to learn that there are other spokesmen of the new faith who
refuse to follow him without question, and who cause " a great
falling away from his preaching and much slanderous talk. There
are some, who after having read a page or two or listened to a
sermon, without further ado take it on themselves to be over
bearing and to reproach others, telling them that their conduct
is not that of the followers of the Gospel." This, he declares, he
himself had " never taught anyone," rather, as St. Paul also had
done, he had " strictly forbidden it. They merely act in this
way because they are desirous of novelties. . . . They misapply
Holy Scripture to their own conceits."4

All this he says when actually declaring that he has no wish
to set himself above anyone, or to be " any man's master."

There was scarcely one among the many teachers of the
innovations who dared to differ from him whom Luther did not

1 Erl. ed., 191, p. 237. 2 Ibid., 63, p. 272. In 1528.

3 See vol. iv., xxv. 4.

* " Werke," Weim. ed., 8, p. 684 ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 55.

376 THE APOSTASY

liken to the devil. " I have had more than thirty doctors of the
fanatics opposing me," he said on one occasion, " all anxious to
be my instructors " ; all these he had driven before him like
chaff and vanquished the " devil " in them.1

" Miinzer, Carlstadt, Campanus and such fellows, together with
the factious spirits and sects, are merely devils incarnate, for all
their efforts are directed to doing harm and avenging themselves." 2

Himself he looks upon as the champion of God against the
devil, raised, as it were, to the pinnacle of the temple. It is the
devil whom by heavenly power he repels and shames in the
fanatics who arise in his camp. " Satan," he says to them,
" cannot conceal himself."3 " Such fellows are beguiled by the
devil."4 Johann Agricola, a comrade of his, he delivers over to
Satan, because he differed from him in some points of doctrine :
" He goes on his way, all devoted to Satan as he is, sowing seeds
of enmity against us."5 Luther warns him that he may become
a martyr, but like Arius and Satan, whom Christ punishes.
" Good God, what utter malice ! These heretics say of me what
the Manichseans said of Christ, viz. that Christ had indeed the
Holy Spirit but only in an imperfect degree, whereas they them
selves possessed it in its perfection."6

Caspar Schwenckfeld, like Agricola, he esteemed an heretical
theologian desirous of innovations, " a mad fool possessed by the
devil"; "it is the devil who spews and excretes his works."
Luther's malediction on this heretical devil runs, " May God's
curse light on thee, Satan, thy spirit which called thee forth,
be with thee to thy destruction."7 Michael Stiefel, the Lutheran
preacher and fanatic, is also no less possessed of the devil. " It
is soon over with a man," Luther laments over this old friend,
" when the devil possesses him in this way."8 Even Zwingli and
the Zwinglians are also possessed through and through by the
devil and are the servants of Satan. 9 All who do not agree with
him, but set up their own ideas, merely show that the devil is at
work in the world. " This is how the work of the devil goes on.
In twenty years I have met more than fifty sectarians desirous
of teaching me, but God has preserved me, He Who said of St.
Paul, ' I will show him how great things he must suffer for my
name's sake ' " (Acts ix. 16). 10

It is these men whom the devil [of pride] carries high up " in
the air and sets on the pinnacle of the temple."11

We must cut short this string of Luther's utterances and
quote some of the words of his opponents. What Thomas

1 "Werke," Weim. ed., p. 684; Erl. ed., 61, p. 91.

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 1. * Ibid., p. 19.

5 To Justus Menius, January 10, 1542, Letters, ed. De Wette, 5,
p. 426. 6 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 323.

7 To Schwenckf eld's messengers, 1543, De Wette, 5, p. 614.

8 Mathesius, " Tischreden," ed. Kroker, p. 295.

9 See vol. iii., xix. 1. 10 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 323.
11 " Werke," Erl. ed., 192, p. 372.

AGAINST THE FANATICS 377

Miinzcr said in reply is the reverse of feeble, but at least it
gives us a good idea of the way in which controversies were
conducted in those days. Thomas Miinzer, in his printed
reply to Luther referred to above, l is manifestly angry that
Luther should stamp all who contradict him as devils.

•' That most ambitious, lying scribe Dr. Luther," he says,
becomes, "the longer he lives, more of an arrogant fool,
shields himself behind Holy Scripture and utilises it to
his advantage in the most deceitful manner."2

The greatest of all crimes is that " no attention is paid to the
commands of the Pope of Wittenberg," Miinzer remarks sar
castically ; Luther was putting himself up "in place of the
Pope," while at the same time "he curried favour with the
Princes " ; " you, you new Pope, make them presents of convents
and churches." " You have distracted all Christendom with a
false religion and now, when it is necessary, are unable to control
it " except with the help of the rulers. He was introducing " a
new system of logic-chopping with the Word of God " ; he is
desirous of " managing everything by the Word " and exalts
himself as though he had not come into the world in the ordinary
way but had " sprung from the brain." He speaks of " our
safeguard and protection " as though he himself were a Prince ;
with his " fantastic reason " he was working mischief, while
making a great display of humility ; he makes much of his own
" simplicity," but this resembled that of the fox, or of an onion
which has nine skins. All his adversaries he labelled as " devils,"
but he himself raved and ranted like a hound of hell, and if he did
not raise an open revolt this was merely because, like the serpent,
he glided over the rocks. 3

Equally remarkable are the words addressed to Luther by
Valentine Ickelsamer, one of the leaders of the fanatics. He
tells Luther that his preaching only goes half-way, for it pro
claims the right of private judgment in things Divine, but not
for all men, and " confuses the people " by its want of logic and
instability. Ickelsamer himself is determined to speak, " because
the Evangel gives us freedom of belief and the power of judging."
Not only does he find numerous " Scriptural utterances which
are against Luther's views," but he also inveighs strongly against
the gigantic pride which leads Luther to " desire that everyone
should look to him " ; his self-exaltation leads him to commit the
gravest " injustice and tyranny." " Settle yourself comfortably
in the Papal Chair " he cries to Luther, " for after all you only
want to listen to your own singing." Your obstinacy is such, he
says, that you would have no scruple in contradicting the state
ment " Christ is God " " were you unfavourably disposed "

1 P. 364, cp. 130.

2 Enders' ed. in " Neudrucke " (see above, p. 126, n. 5), No. 118,
p. 19. 3 Ibid., pp. 29-39.

378 THE APOSTASY

towards its author. Would it not be a good tiling if " Our Lord
God were to smash the idols and set you up in their place ? "

111 spite of all remonstrances Luther continued, neverthe
less, to compare his adversaries to mere devils. The devil
beguiles them to employ their reason, to seek the reason
(" Quare ") of the articles of faith. Such words are tanta
mount to an attack on theology in general. " The ' Quare,' '
he says, " leads us into all the unhappiness and heresy by
which our first parents were deceived by the devil in
Paradise. . . . Verily we deserve to be crowned with
coltsfoot for being so foolish and falling so readily into the
snare when the devil comes along with his old ' Quare.' "2

; " They are lost [the fanatics], they are the devil's own."3
f On the other hand, Luther makes the devil confirm his own
mission. " The devil has been dreading this for years and smelt
the roast from afar ; he also sent forth many prophecies against
it, some of which apply to me so that I often marvel at his great
malice. He would also have liked .to kill me."4 The devil
desired Luther's death simply in order to rid himself of his fine
preaching.

Another familiar thought which seemed to have an irresistible
attraction for him frequently intervenes to confirm this theory.
My interior sufferings, he says repeatedly, and my struggles with
the devil, set the seal of most certain assurance on my teaching,
and this seal the fanatics do not possess.

Here comes Campanus, he says of a refractory theologian in
his ranks, and " makes himself out to be the only man who is
sure of everything" ; "he prides himself on being certain upon
all matters and of never being at a loss " ; Campanus condemns
him as a " liar and diabolical man," and of this he was " as sure
as that God is God." And yet this Campanus has " never
passed through any struggle, nor had a tussle with the devil, and
actually glories in the fact."5 On the other hand, he himself, he
says, had been " tried by the devil " and proved by " tempta
tion " ; that is the true test and is essential for every real
"student of theology" ; "for as soon as God's Word dawns
upon you, the devil is sure to try you, and in this way you become
a doctor in very truth."6

" But those whom the devil takes captive by false doctrine
and a factious spirit, he holds tight. He takes possession of their
heart, making them deaf and blind, so that they neither see nor
hear anything, and do not pay any heed to the plain, clear and

1 " Clag etlicher Bruder," etc., in Enders' "Neudrucke," pp. 44, 54.

2 "Werke," Erl. ed., 38, p. 177.

3 Ibid., 53, p. 276 f.

* Weira. ed., 8, p. 683 ; Erl. ed., 22, p. 52 f.

6 Ibid., Erl. ed., 61, p. 5. 6 Ibid., 63", p.^405.

AGAINST THE FANATICS 379

manifest testimony of Holy Scripture ; for they are so tightly
caught in his clutches that they cannot be torn away."1 At first
heretics do not see where Satan is taking them. " They put
forward the antecedent most devoutly and with a simulated
peace of conscience. Thereupon the devil draws a consequence,
which they [the factious spirits] had never dreamt of. Johann
Agricola, for instance, does not see the consequence. But the
devil is a capital dialectician and has already built up the syl
logism, antecedent, consequence and all. And yet we still lull
ourselves into a false security and think that the devil is not
governing the world."2 Luther refers the prejudice of heretics
in favour of their errors to a kind of bewitchment by the devil,
for if the devil is able to bewitch the bodily senses, as Luther
was convinced he could, then he will also be able, " expert and
dangerous adept " as he is, to take captive the hearts and
consciences of men " with still greater ease." " What is nothing
but a lie, heresy and horrid darkness, they take for plain, pure
truth and are not to be moved from their ideas by any exhorta
tions or remonstrance. . . . They behave like those parents in the
legend of St. Macarius, who, owing to a delusion of the devil, took
their daughter for a cow, until they were at last set free from .the
spell. . . . Thus the devil in such people effects by false doctrine
what he is otherwise wont to bring about by means of delusive
pictures and fancies."3

We will here conclude with a family scene. On one
occasion, in 1544, Luther, in the presence of Catherine von
Bora, poured out his ire against Schwenckfeld for his want
of acquiescence in his doctrines : " He is ' attonitus ' [moon
struck], like all the fanatics," he says of him. " He spurts
the grand name of Christ over the people and wants me to
bow low before him. I thank God I am better off, however,
for I know my Christ well, and have no need of this man's
lilth." Here Catherine interrupted him : " But, my dear Sir,
that is really too rude." Luther replied : " They are
my masters in rudeness. It is necessary to speak so to the
devil ; he can make an end of this fanaticism," etc. . . .
"He leads the Churches astray, though from God he has
received neither command nor mission ! The mad, devil-
possessed fool does not even know what he is talking about.
... Of the muck the devil spews and excretes through his
booklet I have had quite enough."4

1 Erl. ed., 39, p. 109.

2 " Colloq.," ed. Bindseil, 3, p. 321.

3 " Comm. in. Epist. ad Gal." (ed. Irmischer), 1, p. 279.

4 Mathesius, " Tischreden," ed. Kroker, p. 335.

380 THE APOSTASY

7. Progress of the Apostasy. Diets of Spires (1529)
and Augsburg (1530)

The Imperial Edict, issued after the Diet of Nuremberg
and dated February S, 1523, had decreed, that the Gospel
should be preached agreeably to the teaching of the
Christian Church.

At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, it had been enacted
that the edict against Luther promulgated at Worms was
to stand and to be enforced as far as was possible ; the Pope
was also to be requested to summon a General Council to
meet in Germany, but, before this, it was to be decided at a
religious convention, meeting at Spires in the same year,
what attitude should be assumed towards the doctrines
called into question. Against this decree Luther published
an angry, turbulent pamphlet entitled, " Two unequal and
contradictory commands."1 He therein showed that the
orders of the Diet were self-contradictory ; for it was
absurd to uphold the Edict of Worms in all its severity and
yet at the same time to reserve the decision regarding
Luther's doctrine to the assembly at Spires.2

He went, however, much further and attacked the
authority of the Estates and of the Emperor. On the other
hand, at the conclusion of the Diet, the Dukes William and
Lewis of Bavaria, and twelve bishops of South Germany,
at the instance of Lorenzo Campeggio, the Papal Legate,
and Archduke Ferdinand, had met together and agreed to
carry out the Edict of Worms as far as they were able, and at
the same time to inaugurate a wholesome reform of morals
amongst both clergy and people. " By means of this
agreement the temporal and spiritual Princes hoped to
maintain unimpaired the religious unity of the German
Nation and to insure internal tranquillity in their
dominions."3 Dissension for a while prevented others from
joining the league.

The indecision of the Diets was due not only to lack of
unity among the Catholics, but to a variety of other causes :
to political considerations, the state of general unrest, the
need of adopting measures against the Turks, the appre
hensions of the Estates, and, finally, to religious indifference.

1 "Werke," Erl. ed., 242, p. 220 ff.

2 Cp. Janssen, " Hist, of the German People " (Engl. trans.), 4,
p. 40. 3 Ibid., p. 44 f.

THE DIET OF SPIRES 381

The Diet of Spires, in 1526, decreed in language no less
ambiguous, that the Edict of Worms was to remain in force
until a General Council could be summoned, and that the
sovereigns and Estates of the Empire should " live, govern
and conduct themselves as they hoped to answer for it to
God and His Majesty [the Emperor]." This cannot be read
" as implying that the evangelicals were given a formal right
to separate themselves from the communion with the
Church and to set about the work of reformation on their
own account."1

The Diet held subsequently at Spires, in 1529, opposed the
anti-Catholic interpretation placed on the resolutions of
1526 and the way in which they had been enforced. It
pointed out the inconveniences which had been their result,
and sought earnestly to improve the position of affairs.2
The article of 1526, it declared, had been interpreted, during
the time that had since elapsed, in a most regrettable
manner, "as an excuse for all sorts of shocking new
doctrines and sects " and had served as a cloak for
" apostasy, strife, dissension and wickedness " ; wherefore
it was to be rescinded and certain other enactments put
into force.

Then follow the resolutions of the Diet of Spires, accepted
by the Catholic majority and published with the Imperial
sanction, against which the Lutheran Princes and Estates
raised the " Protest " from which Protestantism took its
name.

Foremost among these resolutions is the following : Those who
had previously adhered to the Edict of Worms, " are determined
to abide by the same until the future Council shall be convened
and to insist upon their subjects doing so too." Further, it was
enacted by the Estates, that, " where the new teaching had been
introduced and could not be abolished without notable revolt,
trouble and danger," " novelties " were to be avoided until the
assembly of the Council. Thirdly, in places where the new
teaching was in force the Blessed Sacrament in particular was
not to be assailed or preached against (as it was by the Zwinglians),

1 W. Friedensburg, " Der Reichstag zu Speyer, 1526," Berlin,
1887, p. 482, and in the " Archiv fur Reformationsgesch.," 7, 1910,
p. 93 ff. Th. Brieger (" Der Speierer Reichstag und die religiose
Frage," Leipzig, 1909) disagrees.

2 The text of the Edict of 1529 taken from the Frankfurt Reichs-
tagsakten, 43, Fol. 61' ff. Janssen, ibid., 5, 209 ff. ; also in Luther's
Works, ed. Waleh, Ifci, p. 328 ff.

382 THE APOSTASY

neither were people to be hindered from attending Mass. After
more stringent measures had been sanctioned against the
Anabaptists and " those who attempted to stir up the people to
revolt against the authorities," for the preservation of peace in
matters of religion it was further determined that, " no ruler
might take the subjects of another ruler under his protection
whether for reasons of belief or for any other." What had been
enacted at Worms was to remain in full force, but " if any Estate
should commit a deed of violence " the Kammergericht was
empowered to pronounce sentence of outlawry on the offenders.
The latter enactments were occasioned by the preparations
made by the Lutheran Estates to unite themselves still more
closely in a common League.

Against these resolutions as a whole the party in the
Reichstag which sided with the promoters of the innova
tions raised, on April 19, 1529, the " Protest " which
has since become famous ; they declared at the same time
that it was impossible for them to countenance any altera
tion in the favourable Edict of 152G. Previous to the
departure of their rulers and representatives, the Saxon
Electorate, and Hesse, and the cities of Strasburg, Ulm and
Nuremberg entered, on April 22, into the " particular
secret agreement " concerning mutual armed resistance to
any attack which might be made upon them in the " cause
of the Word of God " by the Swabian League, the Kammer
gericht or the Empire.

In a Memorandum of the same year, also signed by
Melanchthon, Luther approved the action of his Elector
and sought to justify it from the theological point of view ;
" first, and principally, on the ground, that His Princely
Highness [by accepting the Edict of Spires of 1529] would
have been acting contrary to His Highness' conscience and
condemning the doctrines which he acknowledged before
God to be both Christian and wholesome." He also seeks
to pacify the Prince by instancing the terrible abuses of the
Papal Church in Germany, which had been so happily
removed by the new teaching and which he ought not to
use his authority to " re-establish or maintain."1

In the Reichstagsabschied there was, however, no question
of the maintenance of abuses, and, only to Luther, could the
retention of the Mass appear as the maintenance of an

1 December, 1529, " Werke," Erl. ed., 54, p. 63 (" Brief wechsel,"
7 p. 209).

THE -PROTEST" 383

" abuse " ; it was much more a question of checking, for a
time, the advance of the innovations and the propaganda
of the Lutherans and of securing the legal rights of
Catholics, more particularly in those districts where the new
religious system was already in being.

The protesters might have accepted such a settlement
without in any way sacrificing their claims to equity, had
they really been desirous of justice and of coming to an
agreement, Melanchthon himself, in his own name and
that of his friends, could well write : " The Articles in the
Imperial resolution do not press hard upon us."1 Luther's
opinion, on the other hand, was quite different ; it was only
his defiant attitude and their own obstinate determination
to resist the terms offered them which prevented the
protesters from accepting the resolution in question. Their
action, however, tended to excite men's minds still further.
They appealed to their conscience : " What would our
assent be," they declared in the Protest, " but a public
denial of our Lord and Saviour Christ and His sacred Word,
which there is no doubt we now possess in all its purity,
simplicity and justice ? "

They then made the attitude they had thus assumed an
excuse for refusing assistance against the Turks, notwith
standing the fact that news had already reached Spires that
the Turkish fleet was cruising off the coasts of Sicily and
threatening Western Christendom. "It is an undeniable
fact, that they would not promise to render aid against the
Turks unless the Catholic Estates of the Empire arrived at
some other conclusion concerning the religious question
than that under discussion, which they declared it was
impossible for them to accept."2

Such was the position of affairs when, in the summer
of 1530, the much-talked-of Reichstag at Augsburg was
entrusted with the task of bringing about the practical

" Corp. Reform.," 1, p. 1059, " Articuli ibi facli non gravant nos,
two plus tuentur nos quam superioris conventus (1526) decretum."

2 Wilh. Walther, "Fur Luther," 1906, p. 330 f. The author
characterises the resolution against which the protest was raised as
a " horrible demand," even when the Edict simply enacts, " that no
one be prohibited, hindered, or prevented from hearing Mass in those
places where the other [Lutheran] teaching had sprung up." He sees
in the Edict an outrage on conscience, a " deadly blow," and the
forcing of the Lutheran Princes and Estates to " comply with the
frightful Edict of Worms."

384 THE APOSTASY

reconciliation of those who had separated from communion
with the Church. In the event of failure the Emperor held
out the prospect of the employment of sterner measures.

Luther and his followers agreed to the negotiations, but
with the so-called " proviso of the Gospel," i.e. stipulating
that the plain Gospel, the Word of God, should not be
tampered with.

What a grand temple of peace the old Augsburg Rathaus,
with its assembly-room for the forty-two members of the
Reichstag, might have become ! In that case what signifi
cance the solemn procession of the Blessed Sacrament,
which, accompanied by the Catholic Princes and Estates,
passed through the streets of the city on the Feast of Corpus
Christi, would have possessed. Intentionally the feast had
been celebrated with a pomp and concourse of people such
as had never before been witnessed in the city, for was it not
to symbolise the establishment of religious unity? As it
was, however, the work of pacification completely miscarried,
owing to the stubbornness of Luther and his party.

Luther himself remained in the background during the
proceedings. He stayed in a place of safety at the Castle of
Coburg, situated on the Elector's territory but sufficiently
near to the city where the Reichstag was held. His principal
representative at Augsburg was Melanchthon, who dis
tinguished himself by his supple and politic behaviour. In
the afternoon of June 25, he caused the famous " Augsburg
Confession," of which he was himself the author, to be read
in the Rathaus in the presence of the Estates of the Empire.1
The names of the Elector and Prince Johann Frederick of
Saxony, of Margrave George of Brandenburg, of Dukes Franz
and Ernest of Liineburg, of Landgrave Philip of Hesse, of
Prince Wolfgang of Anhalt and of the representatives of the
Imperial cities of Nuremberg and Reutlingen were ap
pended to the document.

When, during the sessions, the new faith and the steps to
be taken towards peace came to be discussed, Melanchthon,
greatly to the surprise of the Catholics, spoke as though the
spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops was to be recognised by
the Protestant party. The Papal Legate wrote letters to
Rome which aroused high hopes, at least in the minds of the

1 See vol. iii., xviii. 1, where more details are given of the
Augsburg Confession and Diet.

LUTHER'S DIPLOMACY 385

more sanguine. It was only gradually that the Catholic
party at Augsburg became convinced of the fact that they
must exercise the utmost caution. The ambiguity of the
promises made by Melanchthon rested on the fact, that
acknowledgment of jurisdiction was tacitly restricted to
those bishops who should declare themselves in favour of
the new faith.

Melanehthon also made use of equivocation in the official
document just referred to, i.e. in the Augsburg Confession
of Faith (cp. vol. iii., xviii. 1). In the further negotiations
with his opponents he was " only too much inclined to agree
to ambiguous formularies and to make concessions not
honestly compatible with the constantly repeated ' proviso,'
that nothing contrary to the Gospel was to be conceded."1
When, however, he showed himself shaky even with re
gard to the sacrificial character of the Mass, the anxious
Lutherans at Augsburg thought it time to draw Luther's
attention to the matter. It was pointed out to him by
Lazarus Spengler that " our representatives at Augsburg
arc going rather too far " in their concessions to the demands
of the Catholics.

Luther would not sanction any actual yielding, but was
not averse to a little diplomacy. He replied to Spengler, on
August 28 : "I have written to him [Melanchthon] about
this once before and am now writing to him again, but hope
that there is no real need. For though Christ may appear
to be somewhat weak, this does not mean that He is pushed
out of His seat. . . . Though too much may have been
conceded — as may be the case — still, the cause is not lost,
on the contrary, a new struggle has been entered upon that
our adversaries may be convinced how honestly they have
acted. For nothing may be conceded above and beyond
the Gospel, whichever party's ' insidice ' hold the field ; for,
in the proviso concerning the Gospel, ' insidice' are em
bodied other than those which our adversaries can employ
against us. For what is the wisdom of man as compared
with that of God ? Therefore let your mind be at rest ;
we can have conceded nothing contrary to the Gospel. But
if our supporters concede anything against the Gospel, then
the devil himself will seize on that, as you will see."2

1 Walther, " Fur Luther," p. 434.

2 " Werke," Erl. ed., 54, p. 193 (" Brief wechsel," 8, p. 237).
n.— 2 c

386 THE APOSTASY

This remarkable letter, with its allusions to the weakness
of Christ, the proviso of the Gospel and the successful
" insidice," calls for some further consideration. Luther
reckoned on two things, as we shall sec from his instructions
to be quoted immediately. First, that the best way to
escape from the difficult situation created by the Reichstag
was to make general statements, which, however, \vere not
to surrender any part of the new teaching ; he was anxious
to pursue this course in order to secure freedom for the
Evangel, or at least some delay in the condemnation of his
cause. Secondly, that though at Augsburg the evangelical
spokesmen might be forced to give up some part of the new
teaching, yet this would be invalid, since against the Gospe
nothing can stand.

One can scarcely fail to see that one and the other of these,
calculations militated against any serious, practical result
of the negotiations. They could only succeed in retarding
any settlement of the question, though any delay would of
course tend to strengthen Luther's cause.

We have also a Latin letter of Luther's to Melanchthon,
bearing the same date (August 28), which throws even more
light on their treatment of the Diet of Augsburg.

The letter describes the painful embarrassment in which
Melanchthon found himself placed as intermediary after
the advances and concessions he had made at Augsburg.
Luther encourages him with strange arguments : "I am
reassured by the thought, that you cannot have committed
anything worse than a sin against our own person, so that
we may be accused of perfidy and fickleness. But what
then ? The constancy and truth of our cause will soon set
that right. I trust this will not be the case, but I say,
should it be, even then we should have no need to despair.
For when once we have evaded the peril and are at peace,
then we can easily atone for our tricks and failings (' dolos
etc lapsus nostros'}, because His [God's] mercy is over us.
* Expect the Lord, do manfully and let thy heart take cour
age, and wait thou for the Lord' " (Psalm xxvi. 14). l

This highly questionable counsel refers to the second of
Luther's calculations mentioned above. He was not, how-

1 On the interpretation of " dolos, mendacia ac lapsus," see Enders
on this passage, p. 235, n. 3, and further on, vol. iv., xxii., and vol. vi.,
xxxvi. 4.

LUTHER'S DIPLOMACY 387

ever, forgetful of the first, and expressly tells Melanchthon
that he will best elude difficulties by the general statement
that " they were ready to give to God what was God's, and
to the Kaiser what was the Kaiser's. ... Let them [the
opposition] prove what they assert, viz. that God and the
Emperor were on their side." " Let them show that what
they demand is according to the Word of God " ; should
they succeed, then they will have a right to hold the field,
because all they were anxious to do was to obey the Word
of God. With Luther, however, the Word of God was not
really the Word of God itself, but what he understood by
the Word of God. We cannot wonder if Catholics stigma
tised this form of speaking as mere " dissimulation." Nor
can it be matter of surprise that far-seeing Catholic repre
sentatives at Augsburg dreaded some snare on the part of
the protesters. Luther's conception of the " proviso of the
Gospel " which, according to his letter to Spengler, was
under any circumstances to lead to the success of his cause,
certainly shows their suspicions to have been amply justified.
Luther was, however, wrong in imputing to them any wish
to make use of similar " insidicc " against his cause.

In a Latin letter of the same date Luther pointed out to
his friend Jonas, who was also one of the theologians then
at Augsburg, the course he himself had pursued at the Diet
of Worms as the best example and rule to be followed at
Augsburg. At WTorms Luther had appealed in the presence
of the Empire to the Word of God as binding on his con
science. " Whatever you may concede [to the opposition],"
lie says to Jonas, " never forget to except the Gospel, as I
did at Worms, for here the circumstances are quite similar."
Previous to this he had said : " Christ watches over His
honour, though we may perhaps be asleep to our shame.
Let them boast that you have yielded much, for they do
not understand that they have not got the one and only
thing for which we really care [the Gospel]. Let them have
their way, those spectre-monks of Spires," he adds in
German.1

Nevertheless, in his letter of September 23, 1530, to the pastor
of Zwickau, Nicholas Hausmann, Luther speaks of the readiness
of his party to make concessions in the matter of the bishops, as
of a serious and important matter : the Catholic party had

1 " Brief wechsel," 8, p. 236.

388 THE APOSTASY

required concessions of them which could only be described as
" filthy, shameful and degrading." " Our party have rejected
their offers absolutely." And he continues in the same serious
tone : " They offered to admit the jurisdiction of the bishops
again, if these would see that the Gospel was taught and all
abuses done away with ; some festivals also were to be retained.
Nothing, however, came of it. Our foes are determined upon their
own destruction ; their inevitable fate hangs over their heads."1

What he says to the Landgrave Philip of Hesse scarcely a
month later, on looking back upon this matter, is less mystical
and more diplomatic. The latter had expressed his " surprise "
at the position which had been taken up at Augsburg towards
the Catholics, and Luther was forced to seek an excuse. Here he
represents the offers made as a mere pretence and thus comes,
as a matter of fact, nearer to the truth than in the aforesaid letter
to his zealous admirer Hausmann, which was anything but true
to fact. We should assuredly have been guilty of a " fault," he
says, and have acted to the detriment of our party, had our
advances been accepted, but of that there was little fear ; now,
however, we profit by our offer, for we can represent ourselves as
having been badly treated and thus we get an advantage of the
Papists. " I trust that Your Highness will not take offence," so
runs the passage, " that we offered to accept certain things,
such as fasting, festivals, meats and chants, for we knew well
that they could not accept any such offer, and it serves to raise
our repute still further and enables me in my booklet to paint
their disrepute still more forcibly. It would indeed have been
a mistake on our part had the offer been accepted."2 The
Protestant author of the " Hessische Kirchengeschichte im
Zeitalter der Reformation " thinks it necessary to make this
extenuating remark : " The fact that Luther was here seeking
to excuse himself will serve to explain the wording of this letter
concerning his behaviour during the negotiations with the
Catholics, which otherwise might be easily misunderstood." He
thinks there was no question of any original intention of taking
advantage of his opponents' good faith, but that Luther, merely
as an afterthought, sought " to represent this as having been all
along his intention."3 But does this really suffice to establish
Luther's honesty and uprightness in the business ?

In agreement with what he had said to Philip of Hesse, in his
" Warnunge an seine lieben Deudschen " (below, p. 391), which
he was then writing, or at least thinking of, Luther made every
effort "to enhance our repute " by instancing the ostensibly so
conciliatory attitude of the evangelicals at Augsburg. He there
speaks of the " humility, patience and pleading " which they
" exhibited " ;4 " our prayers and pleas for peace " were, how
ever, " lost upon these obstinate men." " The Papists," he

1 " Briefwechsel," 8, p. 270.

2 October 28, 1530, " Briefwechsel," 8, p. 295.

3 F. W. Hassenkamp, 1, 1852, p. 297.

* " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 3, p. 277 ; Erl. ed., 252, p. 4.

SPECTRE-MONKS OF SPIRES 389

declared further on, quite untruly, had refused to hear of peace,
truth or reproof, but, " with their heads down," insisted upon
waging war or raising a revolt. " Our offers, our prayers, our
cries for peace " were all wasted. He gives no details concerning
the spirit in which these " offers " were made.

The Emperor's attempts to bring about peace at the Diet
of Augsburg, under the circumstances described above,
were doomed to failure. It was impossible for the Reichstag
to bridge over the chasm which was intentionally and art
fully kept open by Luther and his party. The final resolu
tions which were drawn up in due form and proclaimed by
the Emperor on November 19, declared that in matters of
faith no innovations might be introduced ; worship, in
particular the ritual of the sacraments, the Mass and
Veneration of the Saints, was to remain as before until a
decision by an (Ecumenical Council ; any interference with
or injury to churches and convents was forbidden ; married
priests were to be removed from their posts and punished ;
preachers were only to be appointed by the bishop ; books
were not to be printed without being submitted to the
censors, etc. The enactment, that Church property which
had been seized by the innovators should be returned with
out delay, was a source of particular displeasure to Luther's
friends.

According to Luther the devil had triumphed at the
Reichstag. " The spectre-monks of Spires," to use his own
expression, i.e. the spirits of hell, according to him, threat
ened his enterprise with destruction.

The apparition of the phantom monks of Spires was one
of the manifestations of diabolical animosity towards his
teaching which troubled Luther greatly at that time, in his
lonely retreat of Coburg. We here see the curious spirit-
world in which he lived. A whole troop of fiends disguised
as monks, so he had been reliably informed, had come to
the Rhine at Spires at the beginning of the Diet of Augsburg
and had been ferried across the river on the pretext that
" they were from Cologne and wished to attend the Diet at
Augsburg. But," so the story ran, " when they had crossed
over, they all suddenly vanished, so that they are believed
to have been nothing but a band of evil spirits."1 Melanch-

1 Fr. W. Schirrmacher, " Briefe und Akten zur Gesch. des Re-
ligionsgesprachs zu Marburg und des Reichstags zu Augsburg,"

390 THE APOSTASY

thon looked upon the apparition of the " monks of Spires "
as the presage of a " terrible revolt."1 His son-in-law,
George Sabinus, wrote a description of the incident in verse.
Luther himself was probably more inclined to look upon
these spectres as devils, because he had personally seen an
apparition of the devil at Coburg, where Satan had appeared
in the garden below his window under the form of a serpen
tine streak of light (cp. vol. vi., xxxvi. 3).

He was at that time dominated by fear and dread, partly
owing to the proceedings at the Reichstag, partly on account
of the unfortunate termination of the religious conference
with Zwingli at Marburg,2 where no understanding had
been reached regarding the chief point under dispute, and
partly also because in his solitude his old inward " tempta
tions " and mental depression were again tormenting him.
He was also suffering much from the result of over-work.
A malady due to nervous exhaustion had, in 1527, so en
feebled him as to bring him to the verge of the grave. The
malady now returned with similar, though less severe,
symptoms. The spiritual desolation and fear, which were
the consequence of his doubts, now again assailed him as
they had done after his previous illness in 1527. Of this
condition, Melanchthon, to whom it was familiar enough,
wrote to Dietrich, that one could not hope to dispel it by
human means, but only by recourse to prayer.3

" Satan has sent me his emissaries," Luther himself says
of his sufferings ; "I was alone, Veit and Cyriacus were
absent, and Satan was so far successful as to drive me out
of the room and force me to go amongst the people." He
compares his mental state to a land dried up by heat and
wind and thirsting for water.4

He observed to Melanchthon that as a rule he was weaker
in such personal combats than when it w:as a question of the
common weal, or of his public work.5 This may serve to
correct those historians who have nothing but " praise for
Luther's assurance and cheerfulness " during the time
when at Augsburg his cause stood in such imminent danger.

1876 ; " These reports were communicated to H.I.M." etc. Enders,
" Luthers Briefwechsel," 8, p. 186, n. 9.

1 To Luther, August 8, 1530, " Luthers Briefwechsel," 8, p. 185 :
" plane significat horribilem tumultum."

2 See vol. iii., xix. 1.

3 Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 202. 4 Ibidr 5 Ibid., p. 219.

AGAINST THE " PRETENDED EDICT " 891

Luther's letters, previous to the breaking off of his
followers' pretended negotiations at Augsburg, certainly do
not breathe a spirit of interior peace. He says, for instance,
to Jonas : "I am actually bursting with anger and indigna
tion (' pcene rumpor ira et indignatione '). I beseech you to
cut the matter short and come back home. They have our
Confession and the Gospel. If they wish they can accept
them, if not let them depart." Then there follows- in the
Latin epistle a characteristic exclamation in German : "If
war is to come, let it come, we have prayed and done enough.
The Lord has given them over to us as a holocaust in order
' to reward them according to their works ' [2 Tim. iv. 14] ;
us, His people," Luther concludes, " He will save even from
the fiery furnace of Babylon. Forgive me, I pray, my Jonas,
for spewing out all this annoyance of mine into your lap ;
but what I have written for you is meant for all."1

That it was indeed meant for all he showed by publishing,
in 1531, in anticipation of the " war " and in order that his
party might not become a " holocaust," the " Warnunge
Doctoris Martini Luther an seine lieben Deudschen."2 In
this work, while indulging in the most virulent abuse of the
Reichstag, he declares, that in the event of a war or tumult
no assistance was to be rendered to the Papists ; legitimate
self-defence demanded that such attacks should be met by
resistance. The determination shown by Luther after the
Diet of Augsburg to withstand the whole authority of the
Empire is plainly manifest even now in the vehemence of
the tracts which he proceeded to throw broadcast among
the people. His purpose was to foster among the masses
a spirit of opposition which should be a constant menace
to peace.

Losing no time, he at once attacked the Imperial Abschied
in a special pamphlet, " Auff das vermeint keiserlich
Edict,"3 which immediately followed the "Warnunge"
and was soon being read throughout the German lands.

It is true that at the beginning he here affirms that it is
not his wish to " write against his Imperial Majesty or any
of the authorities, temporal or spiritual." Yet the whole

1 On September 20, 1530, " Briefwechsel," 8, p. 268.

2 Reprinted in " Werke," Weim. ed., 30, 3, p. 270 ff. ; Erl. ed.,
25, p. 1 ff.

3 Reprinted, ibid., p. 331 ft'., 49 ff.

392 THE APOSTASY

work is nothing but a piece of frightful abuse against the
decision arrived at by Charles V and against those Estates
of the realm which had confirmed it. It is a mere artifice
when he declares that he is merely inveighing against
" traitors and other miscreants," whether " Princes or
Bishops, who work their deeds of wickedness in the name of
the Emperor," " particularly against that arch-knave, Pope
Clement [VII] and his servant Campegius," for all the while,
now with satire, now in deadly earnest, he is really attack
ing the Reichstag and the authority of the Empire. Inci
dentally we may mention that, quite oblivious of the
Imperial command, he had launched this pamphlet amongst
the people without submitting it to the censorship, and that
in the very title he speaks of the " supposed Edict," though
it was a question of an Edict issued in due form and signed
and sealed by the Emperor. His distortions and mis
representations, both of historical truth and of the Catholic
doctrine as put forward at the Reichstag, are so gross that
they deserve to be chronicled here.

Some of his misstatements were at once pointed out to
him, in 1531, by Franz Arnoldi, parish-priest at Collen, near
Meissen, in the " Antwort auf das Buchlein," printed at
Dresden, probably at the instance of Duke George of
Saxony.1 " As many lies as words," exclaims Arnoldi ;2
" the devil, the father of lies and murderer of the human
race," was anxious to support Luther by means of the
" dissensions, disagreements and revolts " which had
already been stirred up, and, for this purpose, had sent
this shocking booklet among the people through the agency
of his " familiar and customary instrument and tool, Martin
Luther, that barrel brimful of abuse and slander." Over
and over again Arnoldi expresses his conviction in the
strongest and coarsest language, that " the apostate un
doubtedly worked under the devil's own direction."3 Lu
ther's proceedings do not, however, stand out with sufficient
clearness in Arnoldi's tract ; indeed, the author was not com
petent to grapple with the task he undertook. For instance,
he fails to show by examples how Luther, all through his
pamphlet, makes use of dishonest devices. Thus Luther re
presents the Imperial Recess as laying it down that every-

1 Reprinted, ibid., p. 424 = 88.

2 Ibid., p. 424 if. = 89. 3 IMd., p. 425 = 91.

AGAINST THE " PRETENDED EDICT " 393

thing which the Lutherans opposed was certain on the
strength of the Gospel, or of a special inspiration received
by the Pope, and that this applied even to real ecclesiastical
abuses, to say nothing of certain pious customs not affecting
the faith. Hoping to mislead the people, Luther tells them
that whoever refuses to take Holy Water has, according to
the Reichstag, fallen under sentence of death ; that, accord
ing to the same source, " befoulment with holy things,
pilgrimages and such-like " is a true revelation ; that
festivals and fasts, cowls and tonsure, payments to Home
and pious brotherhoods, come, according to the Papists,
from the Gospel, in fact, constitute their only Gospel. By
his " inspirations " the Pope sets himself above Holy
Scripture, just as he makes himself Emperor and sets himself
above the Emperor, particularly in " secular government."
In support of this last statement he cites the Decretals,
though his references prove nothing of the sort but rather
the reverse.1

It will be worth our while to examine rather more closely
Luther's system of polemics as it appears in his work " Auff
das vermeint keiscrlich Edict." Its utter unfairness was,
indeed, calculated to rouse the masses to a pitch in which
deeds of violence were to be expected.

Seeing that the Edict promulgated by the Reichstag merely
leads people to " blaspheme God day and night," it were better
to be a Turk than a Christian under such a banner. The Edict
" abuses and slanders the married state " — because it does not
tolerate those priests who " live a dishonourable life or with
dishonourable women." It brings to nought the Word of God
because it will not allow those to preach who teach, like himself,
" that which is in accordance with faith in Christ." It entirely
degrades the authorities by inciting them only to " murder,
burn, drown, hang and expel " the people. " Let no one," he
says, " be apprehensive of this Edict which they have so shame
fully invented and promulgated " in the name of the pious
Emperor, for in real truth it is the veriest devil's dung.

Many other almost incredible misrepresentations accompany
his stream of eloquence. Bishops, cardinals and popes were
merely squandering Church property " on women of easy virtue,
on feasting and debauchery," whereas Luther and his followers
employed for good purposes such possessions of the Church as

1 Compare Luther's quotations and statements, p. 84, with the
text of the Decretals given by Friedberg, " Corpus iuris canonici"
2, pp. 172, 196. In the latter passage we have the words, " in spirituali-
bus antecellit (pontifex)," with which every canonist is acquainted.

394 THE APOSTASY

they had appropriated. If they did not hold them in very high
esteem this was because so much " blasphemy " still adhered to
them. The monks were stifled in their holiness-by-works ; they
were convinced, for instance, that they had infallibly won
heaven by merely donning the religious habit. The clergy were a
mere herd of " hogs and debauchees." Many of his statements
were made expressly to excite the contempt and laughter of the
masses. The clerical doctrine of good works, for instance,
consisted in believing that whoever inadvertently swallowed a
drop of water or a gnat before communion, was not permitted
to approach the sacrament. According to him the clergy declared
that " whoever had a smudge on his rochet was guilty of a
mortal sin." Of himself and his preaching on faith he has it,
that " he insisted more upon good works than Popery had ever
done " ; nevertheless, he would not have men seek salvation in
their works .without Christ, as the Pope taught, and as the
sophistical authors of the Edict, " those imperial clerks and
poets," believed.

Incidentally he seeks to lead the misguided people, who had no
opinions of their own, to believe that the Catholic spokesmen
who had rejected his doctrine of the slavery of the will, did not
even know what the question at issue really was. They do not
know " what free-will is ; the Universities still disagree on the
subject. . . . These great, rude, blockheads condemn what they
themselves admit they do not understand " — as though, forsooth,
a difference regarding the exact definition and meaning involved
a doubt as to the existence of freedom.

In their Edict they condemn my doctrine of justification, he
cries, though they themselves clearly recognise the contrary and,
in the secret of their hearts, are on my side, knowing well that
their boasts are but idle lies. In confident tones he asserts that
he has been defamed by sophistical charges of supporting
doctrines which were altogether strange to him and which he
had never defended ; — in point of fact, these charges were not
levelled at him at all, but against the Anabaptists and others ; he
makes out the Edict to contain contradictions, — of which in
reality not the slightest trace is to be found. The Catholic
declaration that to receive communion under both kinds is in
itself allowable, he distorts into a general permission. Because
the giving of the chalice was no longer part of the discipline of
the Church, he calls the Popes spiritual robbers of the faithful
and overt enemies of their salvation. Add to this his mis
interpretation of Bible passages, the pious tone artfully assumed
here and there, his deliberate passing over in silence of certain
questionable points, and his pretence of awaiting the decision of
a general Council.

What has been quoted is sufficient to show the stratagems
to which the author has recourse at the expense of truth,
and the doubtful methods employed by him in his popular

LUTHER'S SELF-EXCUSE 395

controversial writings. Yet this work is by a long way not the
most violent and malicious specimen of Luther's literary
output.

We may wonder whether Luther, in the stress of his
controversial struggle, was fully aware of the glaring dis
honesty of his utterances. Certain it is that he was fre
quently carried away by anger and excitement. Some
daring misrepresentations and inventions he reiterated so
often that he may at last have come to believe them. With
out some inward obsession playing upon his imagination
such a phenomenon is almost inexplicable.

Although the contents of Luther's " Warnunge an die
Deudschen " and " Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict " in
cited people to resist the Emperor,1 and thus far agreed with
the demands of the revolutionary party, as made, for instance,
by the Landgrave of Hesse, yet Luther was most careful to
guard himself against any accusation of having preached re
volt against the authority of the Empire. Previous to the
publication of the " Warnunge " he had assured the Land
grave that the greatest caution would be exercised in the work,
"so that it may not be stigmatised as seditious."2 Later,
too, he declared, quite at variance with the actual facts of the
case, and notwithstanding the well-founded complaints of Duke
George of Saxony and his own Elector's disapproval of the
inflammatory character of his work : " In it I have not treated
of anything in a seditious manner and no one will be able to
convict me of stirring up revolt thereby."3 He informs the
Elector, that the two pamphlets were really not " sufficiently
severe " considering the tone of his literary opponents ; he was
" only sorry that he had not used stronger and more violent
language," whereas — the allegation is untrue, but was calculated
to produce a powerful effect on the Elector — " unheard-of threats
are contained in this horrible statute and sentence levelled
against Your Electoral Highness and the members of your house,
so that the sword and wrath of the whole Empire menaces Your
Electoral Highness in life and limb, drenching Germany with
innocent blood, making widows and orphans, and bringing
destruction and devastation on the Empire."4 He concludes :
" May Our Merciful Father in Heaven comfort and strengthen
Your Electoral Highness in His Word."

The Catholic Duke George of Saxony, a clear-headed man
and good politician, owing to the attack made upon him by

1 See vol. iii., xv. 3.

2 On October 28, 1530, " Brief wechsel," 8, p. 295.

3 To the Elector, April 16, 1531, " Werke," Erl. ed., 54, p. 223
(" Brief wechsel," 8, p. 388). 4 Ibid., 54, p. 225.

396 THE APOSTASY

Luther, descended into the literary arena at the time when
the struggle was at its height, after the Edict of Augsburg,
writing an anonymous " Gegen warming " against Luther's
" Warnunge " and against his " Vcrmcint Edict." This was
published by Arnold!, who added an epilogue of his own.1
The work is written in powerful language and abounds with
good arguments. The Uuke commences with the plain state
ment, that the innovator is after nothing else than making
" us Germans disloyal to- the Emperor and opposed to all
authority." He points out with how great cunning and
malice Luther had gone to work, telling countless lies,
making a loud clamour and using endless artifices ; this
should be taken to heart by those who called him a living
Saint and vaunted the spirit of God which spoke through
him.

Having learnt the name of the author, Luther replied
immediately in a booklet steeped in hate, entitled, " Widder
den Meuchler zu Dresen gedruckt."2 He fell upon the Duke
with such insults, misrepresentations and calumnies that
many Catholics, to whom Luther's conduct appeared ever
stranger, shared the opinion expressed in George's reply, viz.
that " Luther is certainly possessed by the devil, with the
whole legion which Christ drove out of the man who was
possessed " ; if Paul was right in saying that the spirit
was known by its fruits (Gal. v. 22), then Luther's spirit
was " the spirit of lies, which spoke fond inventions and
untruths through him." 3

Luther, in his pamphlet " Widder den Meuchler, etc." abuses
the author of the " Gegenwarnung " as an " arch-villain," a
" horrid, impudent miscreant," a fellow who tried to deck out
and conceal the "traitorous, murderous tyranny " of the Papists
under the mantle of the charges of " revolt and disobedience "
directed against him, Luther. He stigmatises all his opponents,
more particularly the Catholic rulers, as " bloodthirsty tyrants
and priests," as " bloodhounds " who have gone raving mad
from malice, as " murderers who have shed so much innocent

1 Reprinted in " Werke," Weim. ed., 30, 3, p. 416 ff. ; Erl. ed.,
262, p. 9 ff.

2 Reprinted, ibid., Weim. ed., 10, 3, p. 446 ff. ; Erl. ed., 252, p.
108 ff. He calls the Duke an assassin because he had attacked him
anonymously, as from an ambush, p. 447=111.

3 In the pamphlet entitled, " Auf das Schmahbuchlein 'Wider den
Meuchler,' " etc. (" Werke," Erl. ed., 252, p. 129 ff.), written by Duke
George, buf published under Arnoldi's name (p. 129).

"AGAINST THE DRESDEN ASSASSIN " 397

blood and are still desirous of shedding more." They were
" worthy offshoots, who believe our teaching to be true and
nevertheless condemn it, and are therefore anxious for war and
slaughter." He also declares he had never seen a " bigger and
more stupid fool " than the author. " Now then, squire assassin !
Speak up and let us hear your opinion. Shame upon your book,
shame upon your brazen effrontery and malicious heart ; how is it
that you do not blush to lay bare your murderous and shameful
lies before all the world, to deceive such pious folk and to praise
and vaunt such obstinate bloodhounds ? But you are a Papist,
hence the infamies of the Papacy cling to you so that you have
gone mad and spit out such shameful words."1

To describe the Catholic party at the Diet of Augsburg he
makes use of the word "bloodhounds" six times within a few
lines. 2

The haste with which he dashed off the pamphlet was only
equalled by his terrible excitement. He says at the end: "I
have been forced to hurry for the Leipzig Fair [the book Fair],
but soon I shall lick his gentle booklet into better shape for him.
... I don't care if he complains that it contains nothing but
evil words and devils, for that redounds to my honour and glory ;
I wish it to be said of me in the future, that I was full of evil
words, vituperation and curses on the Papists. I have humbled
myself frequently for more than ten years and given them
nothing but good words."3

What he really should have done would have been to
defend himself against the charge brought forward by
George of stirring up revolt against the authority of the
Empire. He not only failed to vindicate himself, but
assumed a still more threatening and defiant attitude.

After contemplating these far from pleasing pictures we
may be allowed to conclude by referring to one of Luther's
more favourable traits. While, on the one hand, his soul
was filled with deep anger against the Papists, on the other
he was also zealous in inveighing against those who were
threatening the foundations of those articles of the Christian
faith which he still held in common with Catholics, and
which he was ever ready to defend with the fullest con
viction.

He foresaw that the freethinking spirit, which was
involved in his own religious movement, would not spare
the dogma of the Trinity. He was painfully alive to the

1 '• Werke," Weim. ed., p. 457 = 118.

2 Ibid., p. 460=120. 3 Ibid., p. 470 = 127.

398 THE APOSTASY

fact that the arbitrariness of the Anabaptists presaged the
ruin of the most fundamental of Christian tenets.

In a sermon preached in 1526, speaking of the doctrine
of the Trinity, he had said : " The devil will not rest until
he has managed to do the same with this dogma as with
the Sacrament ; because wre have snatched it out of the
jaws of the Pope and re-established its right use, turbulent
spirits now want to tread it under foot. The same will
happen in the matter of this article, so that we shall relapse
into Judaism."1

A dangerous example of anti-Trinitarian tendencies had
shown itself in Luther's immediate circle in the person of
Johann Campanus, a native of the diocese of Liege, who had
been a student at Wittenberg since 1528. This man boasted
that he was the first since the days of the Apostles to re
discover the Gospel concerning the true unity or dualism
of God.2

The doctrines of Campanus, which the latter submitted to
the Elector of Saxony, made Luther very angry ; he
described them as " wretched doctrinal monstrosities "
(" misera monstra dogmatum ").3 Their author he termed an
enemy of the Son of God, a blasphemer, a child of Satan.4
Against Campanus Bugenhagen published certain writings
of St. Athanasius, with Luther's approval, and the latter
also wrote a powerful preface to the edition. He wished, as
he says, to strike a blow at those Italian or German-Italian
Humanists, who denied the Trinity or were alienated from
Christianity. In his exaggeration and bitterness he counted
Erasmus, the author of " Hyperaspistes," among the
" Viperaspides" pointing him out as one of the anti-
Trinitarians who must be fought against.5 In the preface
he vents his indignation in his usual language : The

1 Cp. Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 148 f.

2 In 1530, Campanus circulated a manuscript work, " Contra
Lutheranos et totum post Apostolos mundum" which he then re-
edited for the people as " Gottlicher und heiliger Schrift Restitution,"
1532. One of his propositions was : " So sure as God is God, so surely
is Luther a devilish liar " (Kostlin-Kawerau, 7, p. 323).

3 To George Wicel (then on Luther's side) and Anton Hermann,
April 1, 1530, (" Briefwechsel," 7, p. 238).

4 Kostlin-Kawerau, 2, p. 323.

5 The preface in " Werke," Weim. ed., 10, 3, p. 530 if. ; " Opp.
Lat. var.," 7, p. 523 ; in the form of a letter to Bugenhagen in 1532
(" Briefwechsel," 9, p. 252).

TRUE TO TRINITARIANISM 399

doctrine of the Trinity, like the other fundamental dogmas,
was now being attacked by the " slaves of Satan " ; the
example of St. Athanasius, the champion of faith in the
Trinity, demonstrated, how, in order to defend it, we must
be ready to stand against " all the fury let loose in hell, on
earth and in the whole realm " ; in our " altogether distracted
age " it is necessary to " set up against these devils, these
Epicureans, sceptics, Italian and German monsters, Him
[God the Father], Who had said to Jesus, our Servant,
4 Thou art My Son,' and again, ' Sit Thou on My right
hand.' Thus we will wait and see if these giants come off
victorious in their titanic struggle against God."

He recalls how, as a young monk, he had read these very
writings of St. Athanasius " with great zeal in the faith,"
and informs us that he had received a copy to read from his
pedagogue or Novice-master, written out in his own writing.
He trusts that Bugenhagen's work will contribute to the
glory of our Lord Jesus, Who, " through His boundless love
for us has chosen to become the servant of us poor sinners,"
and that " the Lord will soon destroy all those giants, which
is what we await and pray for clay by day."

END OF VOL. II

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